Yesterday the para-Olympics saw the semi-finals of the Ice Sledge Hockey and the dramatic final day of the preliminary round of the Wheelchair Curling. Tomorrow will see the hockey final between Russia and TeamUSA and the semi-finals and final of the curling. As a result today has been something of a flat day with everyone trying to recover from the drama of the previous day and prepare for the excitement of the next.
This actually worked out quite well because it allowed the Snowboard Cross to take centre-stage. This is of course the first time that any Snowboard event has been included in the Winter para-Olympics meaning that there was plenty to talk about. Having only been introduced into the Olympics at the the 1998 Nagano games in Japan snowboarding is still a cause for tension between Olympic purists who see it as simply teenagers mucking and people who are wrong.
Also para-Olympic snowboarding does raise the issues of the limits of disability and the limits of disabled sport. That is because snowboarding is very dependent on balance and the competitor being able to react very quickly to subtle movements being sent up their legs from the snow via the board. Obviously people with prosthetic legs do not have sensation in those prosthetics meaning that they are not receiving the information from the snow. As a result you would think that snowboarding is a sport that is simply beyond people who do not have full feeling in their legs. Sadly today's competition did seem to support that theory with no competitor in either the men's or women's event managing to complete all three runs without crashing.
The other big event of the day has been various disciplines of the biathlon - the sport that combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting. Being the hosts the Russians have been keen to win all the medals at these games and have particularly excelled at the biathlon winning four of the six gold medals on offer today. However a universal effort was made to hand the other two gold medals to the Ukrainians. This was done in order to highlight the fact that the majority of the deaths at the hands of snipers in Independence Square during Ukraine's recent coup were the responsibility to the current Kiev government rather then the government of Vicktor Yanukoyvch. As such I strongly recommend that the current Kiev government withdraw their application to the International Criminal Court (ICC) because if the ICC is given the freedom to do its job any such investigation will reflect very badly on them.
Finally we got to see the completion of the Super-Combined skiing that was delayed from Tuesday (11/3/14) due to the fog. Fortunately the weather has been co-operating with fresh snow falls on both Wednesday (12/3/14) and Thursday (13/3/14) meaning that the event was able to go ahead with none of the safety concerns of Monday (10/3/14). In the visually impaired event there was success for TeamGB with Jade Etherington and guide Caroline Powell taking the silver. Etherington adds this to the two silver and one bronze medals she has already won at these games making her Britain's most successful Winter para-Olympian ever.
I'm sure though that this accomplishment will pale into insignificance when Jade Etherington realises she has most certainly been my weird crush of the games.
20:35 on 14/3/14 (UK date).
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