Sound off - 1! Sound off - 1!
Here's part of a comment I made earlier this morning:
I should probably do one of my exploration thingies and try to look at the view of other countries toward the Olympics, especially the smaller ones. What about the countries that only send a few athletes to the Games, are given no chance of winning, and are generally ignored (not only by NBC, but by most other networks outside of their own countries)? I'm sure that these countries are looking with disbelief at the sight of American silver and bronze medalists arguing with each other at a press conference. Maybe Disney should produce some more movies about these so-called "losers." (Remember the Jamaican bobsled team?)
Enter the Bermuda Winter Olympics team. All one of them.
From the Royal Gazette:
TODAY Bermuda's sole athlete in the Torino Olympics will jump on his skeleton and fly down the dangerous icy track at Cesana Pariol at speeds reaching 85 miles per hour in an attempt to win the island's first-ever medal in the Winter Games....
[Patrick Singleton] has...been treated very well by the hosts since arriving with the British team who Patrick has linked up with. "Things are going great – they are taking good care of us. Patrick has been getting massages with the British team and an Austrian doctor has been helping him with his pelvic problem." Singleton has over the years been injured during training for the luge and skeleton – something that obviously comes with the territory in these sports....
Singleton agreed that competing in his third Olympics will make him more relaxed. He said: "Competing in two previous Olympics will help. I know I wasn't happy with the way I finished in Salt Lake City (where he crashed in the luge). I want to get a lot more out of these Games. The last year and a half have been nothing but solid work but I am reaping the benefits. I am going to go and enjoy myself and race the best I can. I have done what I have wanted to do and I will give it my best shot." In the previous two Olympics in Nagano, Japan and Salt Lake City, Utah, Singleton had to finely balance working for Bloomberg and training when he could.
But this time has been different.
He said: "In previous Games I was working as well as training but for these Games I have only been training for the past year and a half. Basically I have been a full-time athlete."
But while his counterparts in England, Germany, the United States and other countries which have a rich Winter Olympic tradition can just concentrate solely on their event, Singleton said he was very much alone in that he was responsible for many other things.
"As an athlete from a country which doesn't have much tradition in the Winter Olympics I am faced with a lot of challenges that other Winter Olympic athletes are not faced with. For instance I don't have a large federation backing me up and the skeleton or luge does not have a national sports programme in Bermuda!
"Government doesn't exactly say 'here is your team doctor, here is your coach'. I have to do it all by myself whereas the people like the athletes from the United States only have to focus on their race – and that's it."...
"I have to manage everything by myself – things like my finances and how to get from point A to point B with all my equipment – and how to get there cheaply since I am on such a limited budget. And as far as having a skeleton federation behind me, well I run my own federation! I do it all myself. But what all these obstacles have done is make me learn a whole new set of skills – skills I will use later in life – skills that I would never have had the chance to learn so you have to look on the bright side of things."...
"If I take the same passion and energy I have for the luge and skeleton into other areas of my life then I believe I will be a success – at least I hope so."
For the record, Patrick Singleton placed 22nd (out of 27th) in the first heat. He tied for 18th in the 2nd heat, ending up 19th overall.
Steve Dilbeck would probably criticize Singleton for using the wrong runners, but who cares?
A sudden change in weather cost Patrick Singleton a place in the Olympic top ten yesterday – but the skeleton slider declared proudly “19th in the world isn’t that bad!”
With snow falling in the afternoon in Torino, Singleton was faced with an 11th hour dilemma on whether to use standard or snow runners on his sled. He went with the latter but when the weather improved it was too late to change and Bermuda’s sole competitor at the Games was always going to be left out in the cold when it came to the medal hunt....
“Picking your runners is all part of skeleton and based on the weather we made a decision. But once the snow had stopped, it was too late to swap and we had to make do.
“In the regulations you can’t change runners between heats, so for the second run we were stuck with the same ones, although we made some slight modifications and that helped.
But for a brief time, Singleton was a possible gold medalist:
Singleton did get a brief taste of glory yesterday, finding himself in the hallowed winners’ box for being in medal position at the start of the second heat – an opportunity only earned because his slow first run time made him one of the first to compete the second time around.
“It was nice, I guess,” said Singleton, who was pictured laughing away during his short stint in first place.
“If you are near the back from the first run, you get to go earlier second time around so I was in the lead for a bit when hardly any of the guys had gone. It was fun, all the Brits and Canadians were cheering me while I was there.
“All in all it was a great day, although it is frustrating for me that I didn’t do better because of the runners.”...
"I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who has helped me get here, all my friends and family and everyone in Bermuda, particularly my sponsors Montpelier Re and Capital G who stepped in earlier this year."
Aauuugh! A commercial endorsement! Some purist is offended. Too bad.
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