Arena 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics

For me the big thing will be the women's ski jumping. It's going to very emotional for me and I would be so very happy if Helena Olsson-Smedby manages to get up on the podium, she's been fourth three times in the world cup this season. She was part of the almost first batch of girls who got recognized for being ski jumpers when Sweden started to organize the first events for just girls in the middle of the '90s, and that is where the ball started to roll in order to get women's ski jumping accepted by the International Ski Federation. It's been a long struggle and now it's finally an Olympic event. The fact that Helena now competes for Norway because she couldn't get support from Sweden is another thing.

Otherwise I'm guessing I'll watch quite a lot of cross country skiing, some alpine and biathlon. Figure skating and curling are always fun, and the Swedish media will be very occupied with the hockey so there's not escaping that.

One thing with these Olympics though is that this is the first time that they are not broadcasted on the national TV channel, so you will have to pay. I have two of the channels that will show the Olympics, but it's still not clear exactly which sports and if they are being sent live or delayed. That will definitely influence my interest and ability to watch everything I want to.

 

Since women's ski jumping is very emotional for me I felt that I needed to write this short version of the history of the sport.

In Norway there have been women jumping for a very long time. They weren't allowed to compete though, just do show jumps. In most countries where you have had ski jumping there have always been girls who wanted to do it as well, and there have been some individuals doing it, but nothing was organized.

1991 the first training camp for girls who did ski jumping was organized in Sweden. There were around 10 girls, most of them in the age 8-12. Still that was the first officially recognized competition ever for girls, competing against girls. (I actually won that competition). There were enough girls that the Swedish ski federation made it a rule that if there were two or more girls present, then they could compete in a separate class, and not against the boys.
1992 first season with women's class in national competitions
1993 in conjunction with the World Ski Championships in Falun, Sweden, an invite was sent out to organize some kind of event for women. The age of the active jumpers was still very low, but the first international girls competition was held with participants from Sweden, Finland and Canada.
1994 First Swedish national championships for women
1995 at the World Ski Championships in Thunder Bay, Canada, there was once again an invitation for a show competition. One of the best jumpers there was a small girl from the US called Lindsey Van.
Now it was impossible to ignore the fact that there were women doing ski jumping internationally, so the International Ski Federation decided to have a sub-committee in their ski jumping committee dealing with women's ski jumping. My father ended up being the first chairman of that committee. Still the opposition was really strong, and there was so many made up facts thrown around, on why women shouldn't do ski jumping at all. The most used argument, and the one that has been used up until now by the IOC, is that it could somehow damage the uterus.
1997-2007 unofficial women's world championships were held in conjunction with the junior world championships, and a world cup started to get organized. It should be said that from the late '90s the baton of fighting for women's ski jumping had passed to Norway and the US, with some individuals from Austria. When the new Norwegian national ski jumping arena was going to be inaugurated Annete Sagen was voted by the public to be the first jumper there, in a very typical way they managed to sneak a guy in before here though. A positive thing was that the outcry against this got quite big in Norway.
2009 For the first time women's ski jumping was part of the World Ski Championships. The first world champion was Lindsey Van, who had been one of the people fighting the hardest against discrimination against women in ski jumping, and had been part of it ever since 1995.
2014 It's final time to crown an Olympic champion as well. Unfortunately Annette Sagen hasn't managed to qualify, she's been injured before the season. The Norwegian Olympic Committee has invited her as a special guest though due to her work with getting women's ski jumping accepted. Lindsey Van is part of the US team. I'm going to cross my fingers for Helena Olsson-Smedby. She's one year younger than me and we competed against each other quite a lot in the mid-90's. She was part of those first contests in 1993 and 1994.

It's going to be very emotional for me watch the contest in Sochi, since well I was there when it started. That first training camp was organized by my sisters, one of my sisters became the first international ski jumping judge and today she's writing a PhD thesis where women's ski jumping is one of the subjects. In 2009 when the first World Ski Championships were held my father was especially invited to that event and thanked by many of the women competing. He passed away two years ago though and in his obituaries both at the Swedish Ski Federation and the International Ski Federation it was mentioned that it was really sad that he never got to see the sport becoming part of the Olympics.

In 2015 my sister and some other scholars are planning on releasing a book about women's ski jumping and its history.

 

So I generally hugely prefer the summer Olympics, but I followed the hockey in 2010 because I was very pleased that the U.S. had beaten Canada at the thing they're best at. Any chance of that happening again? Because I'll certainly follow that.

Unfortunately there aren't many events I watch aside from that during the winter games. I used to watch skiing a lot as a kid, but I haven't done so in years.

 

I don't mean for the medal of course, just that one game that randomly generated headlines in the U.S. (so I followed the rest of the games).

 

Yank, true there's less of the professional athlete / commercial sponsorship vibe. I just enjoy the summer events more. I watched mostly fencing last time, with a bit of archery (I feel like I am one of three people who doesn't watch aquatic or floor sports -- although even I'll admit that those are fun if you're watching in a group).

I'll try to branch out a bit more. The Olympics is basically the only sporting event I follow these days with any interest. I like the pageantry associated with all of it, which feels like more of a summer thing too. I also get turned off by the US coverage of it since it's so narrow in focus but recently streaming has greatly improved what you can see and avoids the Bob Costas annoying ness (does he commentate the winter games too?)


Misa ab iPhono meo est.

 

Sometimes you get lucky and actually get international commentary. I remember fencing had some British dudes talking -- not sure if I was getting a BBC feed on the stream or if it was just because these were the London Games. Either way, the commentary was actually interesting and instructive.


Misa ab iPhono meo est.