The XXI Olympic Winter Games are already well on their way; they started on the 12th of February and are scheduled to finish on the 28th. The Winter Olympics are being held in Vancouver, Canada, where eighty two National Olympic Committees have entered teams for sports such as alpine skiing, bobsleigh, ice hockey and snowboarding.
Hours before the Opening Ceremony, Vancouver witnessed the shocking death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, twenty one year-old Georgian athlete who crashed his luge during a training run and was thrown against a protective wall on the track. Despite training being cancelled, the Opening Ceremony ran as normal.
University of Bath alumna Shelley Rudman, currently one of the most well-known female bob skeleton athletes, carried Great Britain’s flag at the Opening Ceremony. Rudman entered the sport when, as a student at the University, she befriended a member of Britain’s team, who encouraged her to have a go on the push-start facility at the University. She and two other University of Bath-based athletes, Adam Pengilly and Amy Williams, were also selected to represent GB at the Olympic Winter Games.
Pengilly is currently number eighteen in the world, while Williams, fifth in the rankings, makes her Olympic debut in Vancouver after winning the silver medal at last year’s World Championship. Rudman, also known as ‘the queen of the ice’, hopes to bring home a medal, and prays that her 2004 accident in Salt Lake City; which had her “scared stiff” as she entered a bend too early and crashed into the ice, her vision darkened by the blood inside her helmet, remains a thing of the past.
The USA is ahead in the medal count, at the time of writing, with Korea following suit and Great Britain still medal-less. Team GB, nonetheless, expect to have a successful year, with their figure skating and short track speed skating athletes in particular. Dismay not, Brits, for there is still a lot of ice to be covered and, hopefully, a few gold medals on their way.
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