February 17th - our last full day at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics! Today we are going to the final two runs of women's skeleton at Alpensia Sliding Center. As with most of the sliding events, this one takes place in the evening so we have some time to kill.
First item of business - load up my pin vest. Every day, I've been adding a few pins - think of it as a sort of weight training. Today, my vest is covered with pins from top to bottom. Loading up the vest is a time consuming project because I have to add pins for the sport that we are seeing and remove the sports pins from the previous day. I also have to top off my pocket of giveaway pins. My goal before we left for Korea was to give away 200 pins so that after nearly 40 years, my total number of pins would begin to decrease. These are all pins that I've acquired at past Olympics, although they are not all Olympic pins. But I am running far behind schedule and probably have something like 100 pins left. I can fit about 50 into my vest pocket so that will have to do. I also add another row of pins to my hat.
After pinning and unpinning, I go to work on the blog. Sunny has a small TV bolted to the underside of one of her kitchen cabinets that we've figure how to turn on through trial and error. Fortunately, Sunny was watching the Olympics the last time that she had the TV on so Olympics is what we get - today is the men's singles figure skating free skate (aka the long program). The leading American skater, 18 year old jumping machine Nathan Chen, had a disastrous short program and finds himself in 17th place going into the free skate. This puts him 9th to skate out of the 24 men. Maybe it is the total lack of pressure, but Nathan puts on a phenomenal performance. Nathan lands 6 quadruple rotation jumps (5 of them cleanly) in addition to 4 more triple jumps. His 215.08 score in the long program beats his all-time best of 212.08 set at the 2017 US Championships. They have a booth where the current leader has to sit while waiting to see if anyone passes him - Nathan is sitting in that booth for a long time. In fact, it was 11 skaters before Jin Boyang from China passes Chen's combined score of 297.35 by less than half a point. Eventually, three more skaters pass Chen, but none of them come anywhere near Chen's free skate score. Watch out for him in Beijing!
Around noon, we decide to go down to the convenience store to find some instant meal to eat. While we are trying to divine the contents, a guy comes into the store that could be Santa Claus' double complete with white hair, white beard, wire rim glasses and "a bowl full of jelly". I recognized him as one of the group of people who took 3 taxis to fit in all of their stuff. He says that he is from Atlanta and is staying with 10 guys from Norway in a flat in the same building we are in. He also belongs to the same pin club that I belong to and as we are leaving, he hands me a pin. I would have done the same, but I was trying to save my feet (which have been bothering me for most of this trip) for tonight's event by leaving my vest in the apartment. The pin is a sponsor pin from the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta so into my giveaway pocket it goes when we get back to the apartment.
Sunny arrives just as we finish lunch and I'm going back to work on the blog. We normally try to buy some sort of indigenous art when we visit a country for the first time. So I ask Sunny what art forms are traditional in this part of Korea. She mentions that embroidery is well known here and that one of her friend's husband owns a private embroidery museum. She asks whether we'd be interested in visiting it. Sure! We hop in her car and travel north, more or less in the direction of our ill-fated bus ride of several days ago.
When we pull into the parking area of the museum, she points to a old-style house off in the distance. The is the Ojukheon which means something like "place where black bamboo grows" and is one of the oldest houses in Korea. It was the home of a high-ranking family during the Joseon dynasty. In fact, two of the family members adorn the 5,000 and 50,000 won bills - Shin Saimdang (1504-1551) is on the 50,000 won bill and her son Yi I (1536-1584), a prominent Confucian scholar and politician, is on the 5,000 won bill. We don't have time to visit, but it is interesting that a family far from the larger cities could attain such prominence.
Inside the museum, we find a art class for school children going on and meet Sunny's friend. When we enter the exhibit area, we are joined by an older man who turns out to be the owner. He is also a professor at a local university. It turns out that this is his collection. He speaks good enough English that we can follow along with most of what he is saying. One side of the building is Korean embroidery. We see what look like coin purses and a collection of dolls with elaborate clothing which he says that were produced by Koreans around the time of the Korean war in the 1950's and taken back to the US by servicemen. He has been buying them back on eBay ever since. The most impressive were a couple of large embroidery landscapes that were made for one of the Joseon kings. The level of shading that could be attained was amazing. There is also a section of embroidered pillows. Asian pillows are sort of cylindrical and young girls would embroider the ends of the pillows to show off their skills for future husbands - the same sort of idea that we in the US would call samplers.
We come to a section of small pouches. The owner explains that one of the things that women would often do during the winter was to create embroidered tobacco pouches to surprise their husbands with on a birthday or other auspicious day. Next to the exhibit is a case with a large set of Olympic rings. The owner explains that he worked with a pair of local artists to produce the the eight art posters produced for the PyeongChang Olympic Games. Here is one:
Sunny arrives just as we finish lunch and I'm going back to work on the blog. We normally try to buy some sort of indigenous art when we visit a country for the first time. So I ask Sunny what art forms are traditional in this part of Korea. She mentions that embroidery is well known here and that one of her friend's husband owns a private embroidery museum. She asks whether we'd be interested in visiting it. Sure! We hop in her car and travel north, more or less in the direction of our ill-fated bus ride of several days ago.
When we pull into the parking area of the museum, she points to a old-style house off in the distance. The is the Ojukheon which means something like "place where black bamboo grows" and is one of the oldest houses in Korea. It was the home of a high-ranking family during the Joseon dynasty. In fact, two of the family members adorn the 5,000 and 50,000 won bills - Shin Saimdang (1504-1551) is on the 50,000 won bill and her son Yi I (1536-1584), a prominent Confucian scholar and politician, is on the 5,000 won bill. We don't have time to visit, but it is interesting that a family far from the larger cities could attain such prominence.
Inside the museum, we find a art class for school children going on and meet Sunny's friend. When we enter the exhibit area, we are joined by an older man who turns out to be the owner. He is also a professor at a local university. It turns out that this is his collection. He speaks good enough English that we can follow along with most of what he is saying. One side of the building is Korean embroidery. We see what look like coin purses and a collection of dolls with elaborate clothing which he says that were produced by Koreans around the time of the Korean war in the 1950's and taken back to the US by servicemen. He has been buying them back on eBay ever since. The most impressive were a couple of large embroidery landscapes that were made for one of the Joseon kings. The level of shading that could be attained was amazing. There is also a section of embroidered pillows. Asian pillows are sort of cylindrical and young girls would embroider the ends of the pillows to show off their skills for future husbands - the same sort of idea that we in the US would call samplers.
We come to a section of small pouches. The owner explains that one of the things that women would often do during the winter was to create embroidered tobacco pouches to surprise their husbands with on a birthday or other auspicious day. Next to the exhibit is a case with a large set of Olympic rings. The owner explains that he worked with a pair of local artists to produce the the eight art posters produced for the PyeongChang Olympic Games. Here is one:
It is called Winter Stitch: Love & Wish by Hong Hyun-Jung and Hwang Su-Hong. The motif is the same as the needlework used on the tobacco pouches. The owner explains that Thomas Bach, IOC president, and his wife Claudia visited the museum. Apparently, Claudia is very keen on the arts and had a great time visiting. Some time later, a package arrived at the museum for the owner containing the silver Olympic rings.
The other wing of the museum houses the Japanese and Chinese parts of the collection. We saw beautiful embroidered kimonos and a wide variety of "paintings" made with thread instead of paint.
We're getting a little short on time so we thank the owner for the private tour and go downstairs to the gift shop. Most of the items were cheaply made, but there was one piece that we really liked:
We ask the owner's wife if it is for sale. She says yes, thinks for a bit and says it will cost 120,000 won (around $120). Apparently, almost every price in Korea can be haggled, but this price seems so reasonable, we agree to buy it. When the owner's wife takes the piece off the wall and looks at the back, she makes a strange look and exchanges a few very fast words with Sunny then goes off to work on packing it up. Sunny explained that when the owner's wife took the piece off the wall, she realized that she had priced it at more than double the price she quoted. I debate whether to offer to pay the full price, but decide that this may result in what the Japanese would call loss of face. We thank her very much for her generosity and head back to Sunny's car.
By the time we get back to Sunny's apartment, it is time to leave for the train station. Sunny offers to drop us off which keeps us from being late. There are still a lot of people coming into Gangneung so the security people don't open access to the platforms until 15 minutes before departure. That gives us just enough time to hit the restrooms. I don't think I've mentioned them so far, but they are worthy of mention. Korea is one of the most technologically based countries on Earth so I guess that it is no surprise that the toilets have more buttons on them that seem possible. But did you know that they have a sort of air traffic control board in the front of the restroom? A video monitor shows you which stalls are open and whether each stall has a western style toilet or a traditional "squat" toilet. I can't speak for the women, but I notice that the men don't pay any attention to the video board and will often stand waiting at a closed door when the board says that there are clearly open stalls. The other interesting thing is that the women who clean the restrooms don't give you any advanced warning when they go in to clean, they just barge in.
The train departs right on time and we are in Jinbu in no time. We knew that we would be too early to go to the venue, but planned on getting something to eat and wait in the Jinbu train station until it was time to get on the bus to the venue. On previous visits, we had noticed at couple of food trucks at the end of the parking lot so we head over there. I get barbecued steak with rice and salad from the curiously named "Uncle Guam's". The guy on the truck certainly doesn't look Polynesian and I wish that I could ask him why he chose this name. Beth goes to a truck serving Vietnamese cuisine and orders a bowl of pho. Yum. Feeling much better, I give away a few pins before heading out to the bus.
We've already been to the sliding center once already so that you would figure that we wouldn't run into problems, but you would be wrong. We get off the bus in very cold, blowing conditions and follow the directions of the friendly volunteers armed with the same sort of glow sticks that people on the tarmac use to tell planes which way to go. This doesn't look like the way we were directed to go the last time we were here. Sure enough, we come to a dead-end and have to U-turn.
The short wait at the Security checkpoint gives me time to give away pins to a large group of volunteers who don't appear to be doing anything - 15 giveaways down, 35 to go! When we get to the entrance to the sliding center, we know that if we go left, we'll end up at curve 16, the same place we were for Luge. I'm looking for smaller crowds so we turn right along the Olympic curve 15 and head uphill. We are making good progress until our path is blocked by what looks like a first aid center and a spectator warming hut. We backtrack until we find a volunteer and ask how do we get to the Start. She doesn't speak English, but points off to the left. It looks like if we keep going this way, we'll end up right back on curve 16 having taken the shortcut across the infield and spectator seating in the 180 degree turn between curve 14 and 16. Then on our right, we see a tunnel with no signs indicating where it goes. We go through the tunnel and come out far below curve 13, but we can see that if we continue uphill, we'll eventually be able to stand close to the track. I had originally planned to hike all the way up to the Start house, but I'm wearing like 10 pounds of Olympic pins and we both have sore feet and so we stop at curve 7. This is a pretty good location because there is a 180 degree turn uphill from us so that we can see the sliders coming. It is also sufficiently uphill that very few spectators come up this far. We also know from Luge, that this section of the course from curve 7 to curve 10 is the most difficult part of the track.
The single volunteer who is tasked with keeping an eye on this part of the track takes one look at my pins and says "Wow!" I give her a pin and she asks, in quite good English, where we are from. We tell her that we are from California where it is MUCH warmer than it is here. She smiles and indicates that it feels cold to her also. For the next 30 minutes or so, she was asked by 3 or 4 people if she would take a picture of them with the pin guy. At least it gave us all something to do. Then a "squad" of volunteers came down from above and replaced "our" volunteer with another young woman and we repeated the whole process again.
We've been there for about an hour (30 more minutes to go) when a guy wearing E credentials and carrying a Canon 400 mm f2.8 zoom lens that looks like a small telescope comes by. Yes, a E credential is for still photographers. He also goes "Wow!" and in very good English wants to know where we come from and what it is the deal with all of the pins. I tell him that Olympic pins is the sport of the spectator and hand him one with the wolf mascot of the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo called Vučko. He thanks me warmly and then continues uphill to the Start house.
About 10 minutes later, the same photographer comes back and asks me if I will do him a favor. He explains that for the last year, he's been taking a picture of one person each day. It sounds like one of those "Day in the Life" projects where a bunch of photographers take photographs on a particular day in a specific place. While most of the people he photographed are from his homeland of Armenia, he says that he also went to Cannes for the film festival last summer and photographed people there as well. He says that he arranged the project so that the final week would be during the Olympics. There are six Armenian athletes that he plans to photograph, and he would like me to be the 7th person. He takes a bunch of pictures, some with me looking along the track, some with me looking at the photographer. At the end, he takes out an iPhone and asks to record some answers to questions which will help him figure out the caption for my photo. Most are things like : "Where are you from?", " What do you do?", and "What university did you attend?" His last question is "What would you like your ideal future to look like?" I tell him that I think that the Olympic ideal of creating a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind sounds like a pretty good way to start. He thanks me and tells me his name is Asuras. If I had been thinking, I would have taken a picture of his credentials so that I would know how to contact him. But I wasn't thinking, so now I hope that he will send me a link to his project when he finishes it.
Going into the 3rd run of Skeleton, 23 year old Jacqueline Loelling, the #1 ranked skeleton racer in the world is in the lead. But Janine Flock from Austria, defending gold medalist, Lizzy Yarnold and Laura Deas both from Great Britain and Anna Fernstaedt from Germany are all within 0.30 seconds of the lead. In this run, the sliders go in the order of first to last. We can't see a scoreboard so we don't know how people are doing, but I can sort of tell from the pictures. In this picture:
Germany's Tina Hermann is right where you want to be. Anna Fernstaedt:
and Lizzy Yarnold:
are both looking good as well. Laura Deas is a little low:
Oguchi Takako is way high:
Notice also that Oguchi's head is higher up. Skeleton athletes talk about holding their heads almost low enough that their helmets scrape on the ice. This is while going nearly 130 kph (80 mph). Yikes! But even at these speeds, all of these sliders are reasonably relaxed and just letting their sleds slide. On the other hand, Loelling is in all kinds of trouble.
She is a little high. But notice how she is bent at the waist? Pushing your shoulders into the sled and twisting is how sliders steer. But steering slows you down and Loelling records only the 7th fastest time in the 3rd run. Hermann records the fastest time followed closely by Yarnold, Fernstaedt and Flock. This moves Flock into the lead, with Yarnold 0.02 seconds behind, Loelling in 3rd 0.10 seconds behind, Deas 0.19 seconds behind and Fernstaedt in 5th 0.24 seconds behind. Hermann cut her deficit by 0.11 seconds, but stays in 6th, 0.32 seconds behind. Katie Uhlaender:
despite having a cool American eagle helmet, is in 13th place, 1.26 seconds behind.
The sliders go in reverse order for the 4th run so the top sliders will be last. Based on our experience at Luge where leaving during the final run results in a much shorter commute time, we start heading lower, giving away the last of my giveaway pins on the way. Here is Jackie Narracott from Australia going through curve 9:
and Jeong Sophia:
from Korea in the straightaway leading to curve 10. Notice that her head is up and she is trying to turn left to set up the next curve.
Our path out of the venue takes us down through the finish curve 16 where we were for Luge. There, we encountered the support team, who were also members of the Nigerian bobsled team, for the Nigerian slider Simidele Adeagbo. They were handing out cards providing information about the Nigerian sliding program. How they ended up in PyeongChang is quite a story. It all starts with a Nigerian-American named Seun Adigun. Adigun grew up in Chicago. Growing up, she played basketball and tennis, but really excelled at track and field. She eventually made All-American at the University of Houston. She went on to represent Nigeria in hurdles and sprints as a professional, culminating in her making the Olympics in 2012. On retiring from track, she was one of many track athletes recruited by the US Bobsled team and made the team as a brakeman for Brittney Reinbolt during the 2015/2016 season.
After the 2016 season, Seun decided to help a Nigerian bobsled team qualify for PyeongChang and recruited two more Nigerian-American track athletes, Ngozi Onwumere and Akuoma Omeoga to be her brakemen. Seun also raised funds on the GoFundMe website to make her dream financially possible. The three women started by pushing a weighted wooden sled around. It was at this point that publicity for the team started to appear. And that is where Simidele comes in. She had almost made the US Olympic team in 2008 in the triple jump, but then moved to South Africa and had gotten out of athletics. She had heard online about the successes of women from other sports in Skeleton (in this competition - Lizzy Yarnold was a heptathlete and bobsled brakeman before moving to Skeleton and her countrywoman Laura Deas competed in eventing - a sort of pentathlon for equestrian athletes). Then she heard about the Nigerian bobsled team and thought why not be the first Nigerian skeleton athlete? She went to a tryout in Houston and did well enough to be invited to a training camp in Calgary, Canada in September 2017. Four months later, she became the first person from any African nation to finish on the podium in a sanctioned IBSF (International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation) race when she finished 3rd in the North American Cup race on the difficult Lake Placid track. This qualified her for PyeongChang. Here is Simidele during run 3:
Simidele is now 36 years old so it is hard to see her qualifying for Beijing, but that does not seem to be her goal. She said "I saw it (skeleton) as a way to make history and create a path for future athletes." It certainly looks like she has accomplished her goal. After the Olympics, the Nigerian Olympic Committee is quoted as saying "you will see a lot more (sliding) from African nations in the future".
As we are waiting in the line for buses back to Jinbu, I see on my phone that Yarnold set a track record in the 4th run and wins the gold medal. Loelling recovers from her 3rd run and takes the silver medal. Flock has a disastrous 4th run falling from 1st to 4th, which allows Deas to win the bronze medal.
The trip to Jinbu was uneventful and once there, we are able to get on an earlier train back to Gangneung. On the way home, I notice that Sunny has sent us several text messages asking when we would be home. I answer that we are on our way, but it will be about 11:30 PM before we get there. Apparently, they have some kind of surprise for us. When we get to the train station, we discover that the taxi line is as long as usual. Here is a picture:
This is actually quite civilized compared to the chaos of the past week. Unlike earlier, the taxis are actually picking up people at the front of the line. This guy in the yellow coat is helping a driver figure out where his passengers want to go. The taxis must know when each train arrives because there are plenty of taxis and it only takes about 20 minutes for us to get a ride back to Sunny's apartment.
Once there, we discover that the whole family has waited up for us and are having what we are starting to realize is a Korean obsession, fried chicken and beer. Apparently, American fried chicken like Kentucky Fried Chicken and imported beer both arrived in Korea in the 1970's so they are somehow linked in the minds of Koreans. We are pretty tired, but we share the meal with Sunny and her family while they watch highlights from the day's Olympic action. The main highlight is another win in curling for the Korean team that has come to be known as the Garlic Girls. I'll talk more about this in a later post. For now, it is time to get to bed - tomorrow is going to be a really, really long day.
Steps for the day: 9,449 (but the equivalent of 19 floors of stairs)
The other wing of the museum houses the Japanese and Chinese parts of the collection. We saw beautiful embroidered kimonos and a wide variety of "paintings" made with thread instead of paint.
We're getting a little short on time so we thank the owner for the private tour and go downstairs to the gift shop. Most of the items were cheaply made, but there was one piece that we really liked:
We ask the owner's wife if it is for sale. She says yes, thinks for a bit and says it will cost 120,000 won (around $120). Apparently, almost every price in Korea can be haggled, but this price seems so reasonable, we agree to buy it. When the owner's wife takes the piece off the wall and looks at the back, she makes a strange look and exchanges a few very fast words with Sunny then goes off to work on packing it up. Sunny explained that when the owner's wife took the piece off the wall, she realized that she had priced it at more than double the price she quoted. I debate whether to offer to pay the full price, but decide that this may result in what the Japanese would call loss of face. We thank her very much for her generosity and head back to Sunny's car.
By the time we get back to Sunny's apartment, it is time to leave for the train station. Sunny offers to drop us off which keeps us from being late. There are still a lot of people coming into Gangneung so the security people don't open access to the platforms until 15 minutes before departure. That gives us just enough time to hit the restrooms. I don't think I've mentioned them so far, but they are worthy of mention. Korea is one of the most technologically based countries on Earth so I guess that it is no surprise that the toilets have more buttons on them that seem possible. But did you know that they have a sort of air traffic control board in the front of the restroom? A video monitor shows you which stalls are open and whether each stall has a western style toilet or a traditional "squat" toilet. I can't speak for the women, but I notice that the men don't pay any attention to the video board and will often stand waiting at a closed door when the board says that there are clearly open stalls. The other interesting thing is that the women who clean the restrooms don't give you any advanced warning when they go in to clean, they just barge in.
The train departs right on time and we are in Jinbu in no time. We knew that we would be too early to go to the venue, but planned on getting something to eat and wait in the Jinbu train station until it was time to get on the bus to the venue. On previous visits, we had noticed at couple of food trucks at the end of the parking lot so we head over there. I get barbecued steak with rice and salad from the curiously named "Uncle Guam's". The guy on the truck certainly doesn't look Polynesian and I wish that I could ask him why he chose this name. Beth goes to a truck serving Vietnamese cuisine and orders a bowl of pho. Yum. Feeling much better, I give away a few pins before heading out to the bus.
We've already been to the sliding center once already so that you would figure that we wouldn't run into problems, but you would be wrong. We get off the bus in very cold, blowing conditions and follow the directions of the friendly volunteers armed with the same sort of glow sticks that people on the tarmac use to tell planes which way to go. This doesn't look like the way we were directed to go the last time we were here. Sure enough, we come to a dead-end and have to U-turn.
The short wait at the Security checkpoint gives me time to give away pins to a large group of volunteers who don't appear to be doing anything - 15 giveaways down, 35 to go! When we get to the entrance to the sliding center, we know that if we go left, we'll end up at curve 16, the same place we were for Luge. I'm looking for smaller crowds so we turn right along the Olympic curve 15 and head uphill. We are making good progress until our path is blocked by what looks like a first aid center and a spectator warming hut. We backtrack until we find a volunteer and ask how do we get to the Start. She doesn't speak English, but points off to the left. It looks like if we keep going this way, we'll end up right back on curve 16 having taken the shortcut across the infield and spectator seating in the 180 degree turn between curve 14 and 16. Then on our right, we see a tunnel with no signs indicating where it goes. We go through the tunnel and come out far below curve 13, but we can see that if we continue uphill, we'll eventually be able to stand close to the track. I had originally planned to hike all the way up to the Start house, but I'm wearing like 10 pounds of Olympic pins and we both have sore feet and so we stop at curve 7. This is a pretty good location because there is a 180 degree turn uphill from us so that we can see the sliders coming. It is also sufficiently uphill that very few spectators come up this far. We also know from Luge, that this section of the course from curve 7 to curve 10 is the most difficult part of the track.
The single volunteer who is tasked with keeping an eye on this part of the track takes one look at my pins and says "Wow!" I give her a pin and she asks, in quite good English, where we are from. We tell her that we are from California where it is MUCH warmer than it is here. She smiles and indicates that it feels cold to her also. For the next 30 minutes or so, she was asked by 3 or 4 people if she would take a picture of them with the pin guy. At least it gave us all something to do. Then a "squad" of volunteers came down from above and replaced "our" volunteer with another young woman and we repeated the whole process again.
We've been there for about an hour (30 more minutes to go) when a guy wearing E credentials and carrying a Canon 400 mm f2.8 zoom lens that looks like a small telescope comes by. Yes, a E credential is for still photographers. He also goes "Wow!" and in very good English wants to know where we come from and what it is the deal with all of the pins. I tell him that Olympic pins is the sport of the spectator and hand him one with the wolf mascot of the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo called Vučko. He thanks me warmly and then continues uphill to the Start house.
About 10 minutes later, the same photographer comes back and asks me if I will do him a favor. He explains that for the last year, he's been taking a picture of one person each day. It sounds like one of those "Day in the Life" projects where a bunch of photographers take photographs on a particular day in a specific place. While most of the people he photographed are from his homeland of Armenia, he says that he also went to Cannes for the film festival last summer and photographed people there as well. He says that he arranged the project so that the final week would be during the Olympics. There are six Armenian athletes that he plans to photograph, and he would like me to be the 7th person. He takes a bunch of pictures, some with me looking along the track, some with me looking at the photographer. At the end, he takes out an iPhone and asks to record some answers to questions which will help him figure out the caption for my photo. Most are things like : "Where are you from?", " What do you do?", and "What university did you attend?" His last question is "What would you like your ideal future to look like?" I tell him that I think that the Olympic ideal of creating a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind sounds like a pretty good way to start. He thanks me and tells me his name is Asuras. If I had been thinking, I would have taken a picture of his credentials so that I would know how to contact him. But I wasn't thinking, so now I hope that he will send me a link to his project when he finishes it.
Going into the 3rd run of Skeleton, 23 year old Jacqueline Loelling, the #1 ranked skeleton racer in the world is in the lead. But Janine Flock from Austria, defending gold medalist, Lizzy Yarnold and Laura Deas both from Great Britain and Anna Fernstaedt from Germany are all within 0.30 seconds of the lead. In this run, the sliders go in the order of first to last. We can't see a scoreboard so we don't know how people are doing, but I can sort of tell from the pictures. In this picture:
Germany's Tina Hermann is right where you want to be. Anna Fernstaedt:
and Lizzy Yarnold:
are both looking good as well. Laura Deas is a little low:
Oguchi Takako is way high:
Notice also that Oguchi's head is higher up. Skeleton athletes talk about holding their heads almost low enough that their helmets scrape on the ice. This is while going nearly 130 kph (80 mph). Yikes! But even at these speeds, all of these sliders are reasonably relaxed and just letting their sleds slide. On the other hand, Loelling is in all kinds of trouble.
She is a little high. But notice how she is bent at the waist? Pushing your shoulders into the sled and twisting is how sliders steer. But steering slows you down and Loelling records only the 7th fastest time in the 3rd run. Hermann records the fastest time followed closely by Yarnold, Fernstaedt and Flock. This moves Flock into the lead, with Yarnold 0.02 seconds behind, Loelling in 3rd 0.10 seconds behind, Deas 0.19 seconds behind and Fernstaedt in 5th 0.24 seconds behind. Hermann cut her deficit by 0.11 seconds, but stays in 6th, 0.32 seconds behind. Katie Uhlaender:
despite having a cool American eagle helmet, is in 13th place, 1.26 seconds behind.
The sliders go in reverse order for the 4th run so the top sliders will be last. Based on our experience at Luge where leaving during the final run results in a much shorter commute time, we start heading lower, giving away the last of my giveaway pins on the way. Here is Jackie Narracott from Australia going through curve 9:
and Jeong Sophia:
from Korea in the straightaway leading to curve 10. Notice that her head is up and she is trying to turn left to set up the next curve.
Our path out of the venue takes us down through the finish curve 16 where we were for Luge. There, we encountered the support team, who were also members of the Nigerian bobsled team, for the Nigerian slider Simidele Adeagbo. They were handing out cards providing information about the Nigerian sliding program. How they ended up in PyeongChang is quite a story. It all starts with a Nigerian-American named Seun Adigun. Adigun grew up in Chicago. Growing up, she played basketball and tennis, but really excelled at track and field. She eventually made All-American at the University of Houston. She went on to represent Nigeria in hurdles and sprints as a professional, culminating in her making the Olympics in 2012. On retiring from track, she was one of many track athletes recruited by the US Bobsled team and made the team as a brakeman for Brittney Reinbolt during the 2015/2016 season.
After the 2016 season, Seun decided to help a Nigerian bobsled team qualify for PyeongChang and recruited two more Nigerian-American track athletes, Ngozi Onwumere and Akuoma Omeoga to be her brakemen. Seun also raised funds on the GoFundMe website to make her dream financially possible. The three women started by pushing a weighted wooden sled around. It was at this point that publicity for the team started to appear. And that is where Simidele comes in. She had almost made the US Olympic team in 2008 in the triple jump, but then moved to South Africa and had gotten out of athletics. She had heard online about the successes of women from other sports in Skeleton (in this competition - Lizzy Yarnold was a heptathlete and bobsled brakeman before moving to Skeleton and her countrywoman Laura Deas competed in eventing - a sort of pentathlon for equestrian athletes). Then she heard about the Nigerian bobsled team and thought why not be the first Nigerian skeleton athlete? She went to a tryout in Houston and did well enough to be invited to a training camp in Calgary, Canada in September 2017. Four months later, she became the first person from any African nation to finish on the podium in a sanctioned IBSF (International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation) race when she finished 3rd in the North American Cup race on the difficult Lake Placid track. This qualified her for PyeongChang. Here is Simidele during run 3:
Simidele is now 36 years old so it is hard to see her qualifying for Beijing, but that does not seem to be her goal. She said "I saw it (skeleton) as a way to make history and create a path for future athletes." It certainly looks like she has accomplished her goal. After the Olympics, the Nigerian Olympic Committee is quoted as saying "you will see a lot more (sliding) from African nations in the future".
As we are waiting in the line for buses back to Jinbu, I see on my phone that Yarnold set a track record in the 4th run and wins the gold medal. Loelling recovers from her 3rd run and takes the silver medal. Flock has a disastrous 4th run falling from 1st to 4th, which allows Deas to win the bronze medal.
The trip to Jinbu was uneventful and once there, we are able to get on an earlier train back to Gangneung. On the way home, I notice that Sunny has sent us several text messages asking when we would be home. I answer that we are on our way, but it will be about 11:30 PM before we get there. Apparently, they have some kind of surprise for us. When we get to the train station, we discover that the taxi line is as long as usual. Here is a picture:
This is actually quite civilized compared to the chaos of the past week. Unlike earlier, the taxis are actually picking up people at the front of the line. This guy in the yellow coat is helping a driver figure out where his passengers want to go. The taxis must know when each train arrives because there are plenty of taxis and it only takes about 20 minutes for us to get a ride back to Sunny's apartment.
Once there, we discover that the whole family has waited up for us and are having what we are starting to realize is a Korean obsession, fried chicken and beer. Apparently, American fried chicken like Kentucky Fried Chicken and imported beer both arrived in Korea in the 1970's so they are somehow linked in the minds of Koreans. We are pretty tired, but we share the meal with Sunny and her family while they watch highlights from the day's Olympic action. The main highlight is another win in curling for the Korean team that has come to be known as the Garlic Girls. I'll talk more about this in a later post. For now, it is time to get to bed - tomorrow is going to be a really, really long day.
Steps for the day: 9,449 (but the equivalent of 19 floors of stairs)
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