Winter Beijing 2022 4th Feb to 22nd preview and general discussion thread

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RussellEbertHandball said:
Bobsleigh courses of the 1900's thru to the 1940's, maybe 1950's were very different to what we have now. They were basically straight line sliding on very simple turn courses and were made out of of natural packed snow and ice.

And you used richety wood sleighs not the formula 1 designed things of the last 50 years or so.

Building concrete courses with artificial refrigeration changed all that after WWII.

The day before the Olympics started, I actually looked up how many courses there are for around the world to do the Bob, Luge and Skeleton and its bugger all. It seems like you need to have or be hosting an Olympics or world champs to build one. See them all here;

en.wikipedia.org

List of bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton tracks - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

I was sad to see the Calgary one shut in 2019. I assume the Canucks have moved their training base to the Whistler course built for the 2010 Olympics.

I was in Calgary 4 months after the 1988 Olympics, for about 10 days, and my mate from Calgary took me to all the Olympic sites around Calgary and 100km away in Banff.

At the Bobsleigh/Luge course they had set it up that in summer time you can do about 60% of the course in a cart with wheels on it and you get up to 60-70 km/hr. It's a way to earn revenue for the 6 or 8 months of the year they don't ice it up. A number of other courses around the world also do this,

Unfortunately it was closed for some sort of repairs when I was there as my mate who had gone down it a few times, took me there to have a go, and we were told it was closed for a few weeks.

The 90m (and 70m) Ski Jump course was ******* scary to look at how high it was and think of going down that hill and jumping off it. I got a real appreciation how tough that sport must be even though it looks rather dull on TV.

Now the 90m hill is called the small hill and the 120m hill is the large hill
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If you visit Oslo, Holmenkollen (the Oslo Ski Jump) has a simulator. We went on it a few years ago. Wasn't anything that special but gives you some idea of what it's like. You can also go to the top of the jumping tower.

www.skiforeningen.no

Ski simulator

Have you ever wondered what it is like to jump in the Holmenkollen hill? Try the ski simulator and find out.
www.skiforeningen.no

I've also seen the Vikersund ski flying hill from a distance. That's where Stefan Kraft set the world distance record (253m!!!). Basically it's a small mountain with the ramp at the top and the landing area at the base. Insane.

en.wikipedia.org

Vikersundbakken - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

 
Bungeye said:
It's a black day in Australian sporting history when NZ finishes higher on the medal tally...
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Why?

They have a shitload more snow and ice than us, so they should be above us regularly at the winter olympics.

And don't tell about the population difference. Norway and New Zealand have basically the same population.
 

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RussellEbertHandball said:
Why?

They have a shitload more snow and ice than us, so they should be above us regularly at the winter olympics.

And don't tell about the population difference. Norway and New Zealand have basically the same population.
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New Zealand are better than us at all the important things like winter sports and rugby and making lord of the rings. Things that don't matter like cricket and the economy we come out on top.

Seriously though they are better in many areas of social policy which is probably one area where envy is warranted.
 
Drummond said:
Yep, as disappointing as it is to lose to our rivals, it makes perfect sense.
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I'd be disappointed if they were higher up than us at the summer Olympics like in LA in 1984.

They finished 8th with 8 golds, nearly all in the water, and we finished 15th I think with 4.
 
Sydney Kicker said:
If you visit Oslo, Holmenkollen (the Oslo Ski Jump) has a simulator. We went on it a few years ago. Wasn't anything that special but gives you some idea of what it's like. You can also go to the top of the jumping tower.

www.skiforeningen.no

Ski simulator

Have you ever wondered what it is like to jump in the Holmenkollen hill? Try the ski simulator and find out.
www.skiforeningen.no

I've also seen the Vikersund ski flying hill from a distance. That's where Stefan Kraft set the world distance record (253m!!!). Basically it's a small mountain with the ramp at the top and the landing area at the base. Insane.

en.wikipedia.org

Vikersundbakken - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Click to expand...


It’s a beautiful natural
Ski Jump. Holm K


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
JackNah_8 said:
Ch7 really want us to watch dancing with the stars. Non stop promotion
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Yep.

I was told Todd McKiney was coming on tonight and my first thought was, he will do some talking about the Pairs stuff and a huge cross promo for Dancing with the Stars which starts on 7 tomorrow, between the last gold medal event and the closing ceremony.
 
RussellEbertHandball said:
Why?

They have a shitload more snow and ice than us, so they should be above us regularly at the winter olympics.

And don't tell about the population difference. Norway and New Zealand have basically the same population.
Click to expand...
All you need is to find 4 more gold medals to have a shot of a top 10 finish. There's no reason why Australia can't get better at the freestyle, snowboard and half pipe events. A T20 World cup win was also a lost cause, how does that look now?
 
RussellEbertHandball said:
Yep.

I was told Todd McKiney was coming on tonight and my first thought was, he will do some talking about the Pairs stuff and a huge cross promo for Dancing with the Stars which starts on 7 tomorrow, between the last gold medal event and the closing ceremony.
Click to expand...

I was hoping they were going to send him down the bobsled track, minus the bobsled.
 
RussellEbertHandball said:
I'd be disappointed if they were higher up than us at the summer Olympics like in LA in 1984.

They finished 8th with 8 golds, nearly all in the water, and we finished 15th I think with 4.
Click to expand...

Remember the Kiwis joke in the aftermath of LA?

What do Australia and Carl Lewis have in common?

Four gold medals.
 
RussellEbertHandball said:
Yep.

I was told Todd McKiney was coming on tonight and my first thought was, he will do some talking about the Pairs stuff and a huge cross promo for Dancing with the Stars which starts on 7 tomorrow, between the last gold medal event and the closing ceremony.
Click to expand...
I stopped watching the show when Todd appeared.
 

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Scotland said:
Not having grown up doing winter sports for obvious reasons I do find myself watching events and thinking 'how many people actually do this?' and 'how many bobsleigh tracks are there?' etc.

Cross country skiing, ice hockey, alpine skiing are second nature to people in some countries but a massive luxury here.
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Australia’s aerial skiing training venue jumps into water so they’re only practicing the flips and not the landing, might be why they botched so many? I think they spend a lot of time in America for training.
 
eddiesmith said:
Australia’s aerial skiing training venue jumps into water so they’re only practicing the flips and not the landing, might be why they botched so many? I think they spend a lot of time in America for training.
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Practising landings on snow (as distinct from water, foam balls etc) would surely be detrimental to the long term health of knees (plus head, back and everything else when it goes wrong).
 
Royces Hart said:
Remember the Kiwis joke in the aftermath of LA?

What do Australia and Carl Lewis have in common?

Four gold medals.
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Haha, I forgot all about that joke.

That was the last time they were ahead of us, although Seoul when the eastern bloc came back, we both won 3 golds, but Oz won a few more silvers than NZ and they won a few more bronzes. Oz has been a top 10 nation by gold medal rankings and total medal rankings since Barcelona.
 
Bungeye said:
All you need is to find 4 more gold medals to have a shot of a top 10 finish. There's no reason why Australia can't get better at the freestyle, snowboard and half pipe events. A T20 World cup win was also a lost cause, how does that look now?
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Nah its not that simple.

Freestyle skiing and snowboarding has been dominated by yanks and canadians and now the other traditional snow countries are throwing funding at it and the medals are getting spread out.

Before this Olympics I said to myself, in the events that have many gold medals to win,

Austrians dominate alpine skiing,
Norwegians dominate cross country skiing with or without a gun,
North Americans dominate freestyle skiing and snowboard,
Germans dominate sliding events,
Dutch dominate speed skating,
Scandis dominate ski jumping, and
South Koreans dominate short track speed skating,

Nothing much has changed these games except for the Chinese, as always happens on home soil for the host, have made an impact in a couple of sports. Freestyle skiing and snowboarding have been those events and partly helped by an American turned Chinese.

The Swedes have done well but they have spread their gold medals over 6 or 7 sports.

Natural advantages, especially in winter olympics more so than summer olympics, are near impossible to change.

Australia's advantage is water - that's why most of our gold and total medals are won in water sports - swimming, rowing, sailing kayaking/canoeing, triathlon and diving.

We throw lots of monies at other sports like track cycling, where we can do well when the talent cycle timing is right, but we will never dominate that sports for 20 years.
 
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caveman72 said:
I don't follow figure skating anyone able to explain how you can have multiple falls/errors and still finish 4th.
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Can anyone explain Belinda Noonan commentating through any chance we had to get captivated by a performance?
Every
Bloody
Olympics.
No one thinks to tell her to wait until the replay to gabble on about death spirals and flying freaking camels.
Just piss off Belinda!!!
And no...can't turn sound off because then no music...
She just ruins it. That voice. Uggggh.

Rant over.
 
They need to standardise the bob sleds if it's going to be a proper competition.
Is it about the drivers and teams or the engineers and amount of money?
Rubbish.
Have 24 olympic sleds ...all made in Germany. Whatever....just make it a level playing field.
 
myblueroan said:
Can anyone explain Belinda Noonan commentating through any chance we had to get captivated by a performance?
Every
Bloody
Olympics.
No one thinks to tell her to wait until the replay to gabble on about death spirals and flying freaking camels.
Just piss off Belinda!!!
And no...can't turn sound off because then no music...
She just ruins it. That voice. Uggggh.

Rant over.
Click to expand...
She's annoying and overly critical
 
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