#FOWC Archives – Page 58 of 102

February 12, 2022February 14, 2022

Exorcising Demons for Gold ( Day 7, Beijing 22)

Lindsey Jacob Ellis, winning Women’s Snowboard Cross. Photo by Clive Rose.

Every Olympic athlete suffers. Every Olympian, every medalist, every winner has their own long story of hardship and sacrifice. Yet, there are a handful of stories every quadrennial cycle that stand out as just a little more meaningful.

Some might characterize these as stories of redemption, a perennial issue at the Games, as I’ve noted before. Some athletes simply take a little longer to get to the top of the podium. Some are haunted, but not as much by visions of lost medals as by the media. Even a previous gold isn’t always enough to keep the demons away. It’s why the Olympics is particularly hard on also-rans. The four year interval is a killer because it takes so long to wait to try again.

Lara Guy-Behrami celebrates her Super G win. Photo by Robert Bukaty.

Finally!

The oldest this. The longest that. The most years between the first Olympics and a win. These are the epithets that get tagged on to Olympians of an entire class. Winter athletes work in harsh and dangerous conditions, conditions for the young. Yet, there are 30-year-olds in the mix, because it takes experience to slice off that extra edge next to a slalom gate or to squeeze a few inches in front of the snowboard cross racer behind you.

While U.S. media were obsessing over why two-time gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin had skied off course, Switzerland’s Lara Gut-Behrami was wondering whether her 30-year-old legs would be enough. She’d won Super-G titles, going all the way back to 2014, but she had only managed fourth in Sochi. There was a bronze, but it was in the downhill, and she had only managed bronze again earlier in the week in the Giant Slalom. Bronze was better than fourth, but…

February 7, 2022February 11, 2022

Women Jumping for Joy (Day 3, Beijing 22)

Start ’em young. 8-yr-old Kaija Copenhaver of Marquette, MI on a 30m hill. Photo by Benjamin Wideman.

The body is squeezed into a fetal position over two elongated toothpicks that hurtle down icy rails until the track simply ends. Up and out, the plunger opts for the “V” for Victory sign, tipping their sticks up and out as one hand act the rudder, flapping as the toothpicks fall down, down, down. So far down! Off in the distance, there are mountains, trees, even buildings, while the whiteness is below almost transparent except for pastel-colored lines, suddenly oh-so-close. A landing without parachute or bungee cord, just those two sticks, best held parallel as the flier alights, one in front of the other, arms upraised in a benediction–I am safe, I have come down to earth.

Men and women have jumped together in competitions, as with the vast majority of organized sports, since the mid-19th century. Women have been allowed to jump internationally for less than a decade. The new dominant country, which has some of the best facilities in the world, will surprise you. In the mixed competition this year, there was controversy over disqualifications due to equipment and elation for those bumped up on to the podium. There is concern for athletes’ mental health due to body-shaming and the pressure of competition. Olympics, same as it ever was.

Welcome to ski jumping.

Paula von Lamberg, aka the “Queen of the Skis.” Photo from playthegame.org.

January 28, 2022February 2, 2022

Sewage, Save Us!

Wastewater monitoring in Bay Area, courtesy of covid-web.org

Who knew that effluent could be interesting? Who knew that the poop emoji was grinning for a reason? Who could have foretold, two years ago, that wastewater would be the key to everything? The scientists did.

Scientists have been closely monitoring wastewater and COVID since the start of the pandemic, and their data has helped predict patterns that have proved essential to acting on the spread of the disease. This kind of analysis has saved lives before and may be more common than we knew.

Dr. John Snow, who knew plenty. Photo from wikipedia.

The Intrepid Sewage Scientists of Yesteryear

The year is 1854, London. You’ve read your Dickens, so you can visualize the urchins, the dark and narrow alleys, the choking industrial pollution. And the sewage–open cesspool holes near houses and channels of who-knows-what running near the sidewalks. There’s a cholera outbreak, and cholera has to be one of the nastiest diseases ever invented by that clever bacteria kingdom. I mean, if you’re evil bacteria and you want to spread across your host population as quickly as possible, what better way than to infect a human intestinal tract then produce explosive, watery … uh…. output.