It is now March 1st and we are back in California. Thank you for sticking with us to the end! As a bonus, we are including our adventures in Venice for 2+ days after leaving Cortina. Now that we are a little less jetlagged, we hope to finish up the blog in the next 3-4 days. Enjoy!
February 21
Today are the first two runs of the men's 4-man bobsled, the premier sliding event of the Winter Olympics. It is a brilliant sunny morning in Cortina:
Our skiing days are sadly in the rear-view mirror, but we can't help but wonder what this place is like in the summertime. It surely is gorgeous in the winter! Speaking of skiing, here is one of the strangest pins that Steve ever traded for:
What possessed someone to produce a pin featuring the physics of skiing? In any case, it appealed to nerds in us.
A German guy asks Steve if he will take a selfie with him and Steve obliges. Steve tells him that he would wish Germany luck, but he doesn't think that the Germans will need it as it is very likely that they will sweep this event. The man laughs and agrees but says that the order is important because he is a supporter of the German #2 driver, Francesco Friedrich. Judging from what the Germans are wearing, there are two big tribes of supporters, those that support Friedrich and those that support his nemesis (and the best driver in the world), Johannes Lochner. Lockner has announced his retirement after the Olympics and his supporters are wearing custom ski jackets that say, "One last dance for Team Lockner". Did we mention that Germans take their sliding sports very, very seriously?!
Back at our favorite corner, the sunshades are down to avoid the track melting before the run even starts. As we are trying to decide what to do, the track workers start raising a few of shades and our favorite OBS cameraman (full disclosure - he is the only OBS cameraman we've met!) is revealed. We ask him if this means he slept in his position and he laughs. With sunshine, we notice that holes have been cut into the supports for the railings next to the track, so you get little 26s when the sun shines:
We've spoken to Americans at this position for both of our previous sliding events and we make it 3 for 3 when Daniella from Oregon joins us. She reminds us that she was actually at this location last night but got here later and was further back in the crowd. She tells us that her father's family is from the next valley over from Cortina. She says that her career is telling people what to do so she jumps into the job of keeping random people from walking into the cameraman's line of sight.
As with the previous event, the start order in run #1 is in world cup order so Team Lockner from Germany goes first:
Those three blue helmets behind the driver are the push athletes. They don't look very big here, but don't let the view fool you. An empty 4-man bobsleigh weighs more than 450 lbs and it is these guys' job to get the sled up to speed during a 5+ second, 55-yard sprint. They are all the size of National Football League linebackers with the same combination of strength and speed. We wish that we could share some pictures of these pushers loading into the sled after their sprint. But Steve wasn't willing to climb to the top of the track to see if the organizers made it possible for spectators to get a good view of the start. We did talk to one person in Venice who said that there were no good viewing places in the start area - all of the prime spots were taken by camera crews.
In any case, it is really ballet to see these huge guys get into the sled in less than a second without knocking each other out. For the rest of the ride, all they get to do is gaze at their navels (to keep their helmets and shoulders out of the slipstream), handle the 5-6 g's that gravity inflicts on them coming down the course and pray that the driver does not do something crazy that will make them slide on their helmets down the track at 80+ mph with a 450+ lb sled on top of them. Here is another view:
Only the last push athlete, the brakeman, has something to do at the end of the race, which is to pull on the brake so that they don't crash into the barrier at the end of the track. Sounds like a great job, right?!
Lochner and his crew set both the start record and track record on their first run to take the lead followed by Friedrich, the British team of Brad Hall and the Swiss team of Cedric Follador. The third German sled of Adam Ammour is 5th. Here are some pictures from the first run:
Between runs, we see a bunch of what we think are starlings riding the thermals:
The second run is a little more challenging; both for the drivers and for us. As the sun moves across the sky, the track workers gradually close more of the sunshades on "our" turn. This forces the OBS cameraman to move forward which changes where the line is drawn beyond which the spectators can't go. An Italian couple ignores the people who have been standing there for hours and walks right to the front. This means that Steve has to try to shoot around them and Beth has trouble seeing anything.
The second run goes from #25 to #1 and then #26 and #27 afterwards. The fifth sled down is the Austrian sled driven by Jakob Mandlbauer. They flip the sled upside down in turn #7. You don't need to have a track announcer tell you there was a crash; you can hear the sled making way more noise than it should as it rumbles toward you. Here is a picture as it slides by us:
Remember that there are four large guys under that sled - and they were going over 70 mph when they flipped. When it goes by, Steve, remembering that the last part of the track is uphill, says that the sled is going to come back. Sure enough, the noise stops for a second and then picks back up. The sled goes all the way around the 360-degree curve again and comes to rest at the low point of the track. The track announcer says that everyone is out of the sled and looks okay. The sled is eventually brought back to our curve where there is a gate that can be opened to remove the sled and put it in a truck. But something is wrong: it is taking too long to restart the competition. Eventually, one of the athletes is brought to our curve on a stretcher and backboard. We find out later that Mandlbauer, who as the driver is the only one whose head is above the sled's cowling while racing, complained of neck and back pain when they got him out of the sled and they treat him as if he has a broken spine. Fortunately, testing later showed no factures, and he was later released from the hospital.
Most of the second run was uneventful. The Germans go 1-2-3 on the run although the order was Ammour, Lochner and Friedrich. They are followed by two Swiss sleds and the Italian sled of Patrick Baumgartner. After the three German teams go, it is time for the two lowest ranked sleds, the French sled driven by Romain Heinrich and the sled from Trinidad and Tobago driven by Axel Brown. Heinrich crashes in the same curve as Mandlbauer. Fortunately, after they slide by us toward the finish line, they don't slide back down the hill. We suspect that there is someone up there with a hook to catch the sled before it slides back down. Since Mandlbauer's crash was the first in any of the sliding competitions, perhaps they weren't ready to catch the Austrians, but they did catch the French. The track announcer tells us that the French team were all able to walk away from the crash and appear to be okay. Again, the sled is brought back down to our curve:
Since there is only one more team to go and there is a fairly lengthy delay to clear the track, most of the people make their way to the exit. We didn't think that this was fair to the team from Trinidad and Tobago, so we elect to wait. Unfortunately for Axel Brown's team, they also crash in turn 7 and the whole process is repeated. Brown is later quoted as saying that he went to pull on the D-rings that bobsleds use to steer and the D-ring snapped off so he had no steering at all. Fortunately, his team is okay, and they are able to walk away from the crash. Here are some pictures from run #2:
Tomorrow is moving day after eight days in Cortina, so we eat lunch in our room and spend the afternoon packing and blogging. Steve goes out to trade pins for a little while, but he mostly gives away pins. The Closing Ceremonies are tomorrow in Verona, and we hope to be in our hotel in Venice in time to watch on TV. Enjoy!
