As the Olympics get underway in Russia, the question is starting to rise: Can the Russians pull off a successful Olympics? Particularly, will their course designs hold up to the worlds top athletes. Already there has been a few bumps in the road.
Today, the Women’s Downhill training was delayed by more than two hours after injuries on course, including a double knee injury. The lack of expert forerunners on course essentially left the women blind as they dropped in on the course, to find that one of the jumps near the bottom was simply too large for the speed the women were carrying into the jump.
The men are facing similar issues with the Downhill course, reaching speeds of up to 90 mph mere seconds into their runs.
The Slopestyle course is having similar issues. There have already been a number of big crashes with the first few runs of the Women’s Slopestyle qualifier on a course which many are speculating is too dangerous. Yesterday, snowboarding superstar Shaun White pulled out of the Slopestyle event on the grounds that it is simply too dangerous. Here is what he had to say:
However, with the practice runs I have taken, even after course modifications and watching fellow athletes get hurt, the potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me to gamble my other Olympic goals on.
– Shaun White
It will be interesting to see how the Russians hold things together as The Games progress. What do you think, will Sochi 2014 go down as a success?
