“Altius”

“Higher and Higher”  Jackie Wilson may have the theme song for the Winter Olympics.  You have to get higher to get the snow necessary for most of the events, especially in Sochi, which is actually a subtropical city on the Black Sea and one of warmest places the Winter Games have been held.  Luckily, the Caucasus Mountains are nearby and fill the bill for snowfall.  When the competitors and spectators come off the slopes, they can stroll the palm tree-lined streets of the city!

Just getting altitude travelling to the venues isn’t the real story of winter sports, though.  If you’ve been to the Rockies and spent much time there, you know what it’s like.  Omaha, for instance, is about 1,200 feet above sea level in most places.  My favorite place to ski, Keystone in Dillon, Colorado, is 12,408 feet at the summit.  Being there literally takes your breath away!

Sochi, Russia?  The resort hosting the games is Krasnaya Polyana, about an hour from the city.  The interesting aspect of elevation here is that the base is along the Mzymta River and the lifts start at just 1,840 ft.  The climb is over a mile to the top at 7,610 ft.  That’s about the altitude of the city of Jackson, Wyoming.  As you’ve seen on TV, no doubt, most of the snow on the courses has come from 450 snow making machines, but they’ve actually been storing snow since last winter just to be sure they had enough!!  So it’s going to be cold and there’s plenty of snow even if the venue isn’t above the clouds as much as some other places.  To the competitors, that’s not the elevation they’re after anyway.

Women will be ski jumping competitively for the first time at this Olympics.  The IOC finally figured out that “the fairer sex” is also pretty damned tough.  The ladies will hit the edge of the jump like most jumpers at approximately 60 mph, glide with their skis in the classic “V” shape about 10-15 feet above the snow, and travel well over 300 feet down the slope before landing.  The men’s record is over 800 feet!  Remember the “Citius” part of the slogan?  All of this, from start to finish, only takes a little over ten seconds!

Ski jumping is the most obvious aspect of “Higher” at the Winter Olympics, but remember that the other skiers are starting well up the mountain and traveling over a mile to get to the end of their respective events.  Some of these are sort of like dropping down an elevator shaft….

It takes elevation in some of the other sports, too.  When you’re watching the guilty pleasure that is ice dancing, take a look at how tall that guy is in the pairs.  The young lady he hoists to arm’s length over his head is going to be a good eight feet off the ice when he drops (oops, poor word choice)…throws (that’s better??) her back onto her feet for their next maneuver.  When he’s dizzily spinning around, holding her hands and raising her parallel to the ice, she’s going to be better than three feet up and really moving before she finds a skate again.  Check the jumps against the height of the side paneling.  Those skaters are going to leap a good four feet into the air to do their spins and splits and then come down on one blade to glide backwards before leaping again off that one foot.  Hurdles, anyone?

Those really fancy skiers and boarders doing flips and turns will be getting rad air, dude!  Thirty, forty feet in the air coming off of the lips of those freestyle courses or half pipes…no wonder most of those men and women have more pins and screws than my lawn mower.  I usually try NOT to go end-over-end when I’m skiing!

Yep.  At the Winter Olympics, “getting high in the mountains” isn’t legislated.  It’s effort and skill and daring and practice and practice and practice….  Don’t try this at home.