“Fortius”

Stronger.

Faster.  Higher.  Stronger.

You don’t get Faster or Higher unless you’re Stronger.  You know—like Superman: “Faster than a speeding bullet.  Can leap tall buildings in a single bound.”  Try that on spindly legs.

So how strong do Olympic athletes have to be?  Ever skied?  Ice skated?  Pushed a 1,400 lb sled?  Withstood the same g-forces as a fighter pilot in a tight turn?  Take a look at the thighs on speed skaters.  Skiers aren’t really bulked up, but they’re amazingly strong.  Yeah, the Sports Illustrated bikini shots of Lindsey Vonn were awesome, but try this: do a wall squat.  Stand about 14 inches from a wall (a flat door jamb works well).  That’s about the length of your femur.  Then press your back against the wall and sit just like there was a chair under you.  Now hold it.  The fastest times in Giant Slalom, for instance, are over one minute and 15 seconds.  Racers are doing over fifty mph.  On icy snow.  Maneuvering through gates.  How did you do with your squat?  Watch ski racers hold that position, bent over their skis and fighting the icy ruts in the snow, the wind, the cold, the terrain.  Some of them will go fast enough that one slip in their aerodynamics and they’re literally airborne and out of control…at Interstate speeds.

Now watch the hockey team or the speed skaters or the ice dancers or the snowboarders or free style skiers.  Core strength and leg strength and strength of will launch them into the air, spinning and somersaulting or flattened against an ice track or chasing a puck or plunging headlong down a tube of ice just to prove they can do it better than anyone else in the world.

Speed.  Strength.  Guts.  Glory.

USA

“Citius”

“Faster! Faster!”

I kept telling myself that the faster I could go down the slope, the better I could control my turns and carve a clean line in the snow.  Over and over I tried to get myself positioned to ride the skis in an exhilarating rush to the bottom.  Over and over I was “ass over appetite” upside down, sliding on my back with my skis in the air before finally stopping and picking myself up out of the snow.  Thighs burning.  Out of breath from exertion.

My grandfather bought me a pair of skis and poles for my thirteenth birthday in December of 1963.  The cable bindings held my laced-up leather boots snuggly to the skis much like cross country skis.  From our set of Funk and Wagnall encyclopedias I learned about crow-footing and side-edge climbing, the basic “snow plow” or “wedge” for controlling speed, parallel skiing and turning.  Luckily for me, it snowed quite often that winter, and no one chased me off the golf course when I was teaching myself these techniques.  Every ignominious slide down meant a long trek back up the hill.  The nearest slope with a ski lift was hundreds of miles away and way out of my budget.

I was out of college, married, and had kids before I ever tried skiing on a mountain.  The self-instruction from so many years ago paid off, though, and the group lesson I took was simply a refresher.  It wasn’t long before I was “whizzing” down those green slopes at Winter Park.  I love to ski.  I think about it almost every day no matter what the season.

Every time the Winter Olympics return to television, I try to watch as much of the ski competitions as possible.  When I combine my own efforts on the slopes with my imagination, I am awed by the abilities of those world-class athletes.  My own abilities eventually enabled me to ski Blues (Intermediate) slopes and some moguls with fair success, and I attempted a few Blacks (Advanced) in my younger years.  I was even able to get to the point that I was going faster and faster and zipping down the slopes with relative ease.  My most recent trip, just before my 63^rd birthday, was twenty-one years after the last one.  I took it easy, believe me.

Citius…this is the first word in the slogan of the Modern Olympics.  It means “faster” in Latin.  For winter athletes this is more than a catch phrase.  Speed is generally the key element in most of the sports (I have no idea what the deal is with curling.).  When you’re watching the Olympics over the next couple of weeks, try to understand the element of speed.

Lindsey Vonn won’t be competing this year because of injury.  She was the USA’s best hope for gold in Women’s Downhill.  She fell.  More than once.  If you’ve ever skied, you’ve fallen down.  What’s the big deal?  Think about this.  The average speed for Alpine racing is around 80 mph.  The average gradient is about 28%.  That’s not far off vertical!  Imagine going 80 mph down the stairs of the Washington Monument…on skis…on icy snow…at 14,000 ft…in the wind…with the air temperature at 20°F or less…then falling down.  How long would it take you to stop?  Speed skiers (a variation on the sport) typically go 125 mph or more (the record is 156 mph—faster than a freefalling skydiver).  The average takeoff speed for a 737 is about 155 mph.

Skiing is just one of the sports in the Winter Olympics, of course, but speed is a part of almost all of them.  Biathletes have to cross country ski as fast as they can and then stop four times to fire a rifle.  Speed skaters go in circles and turn so sharply that those thin blades are carving turns while the skaters’ bodies are almost parallel to the ice.  Bobsled, luge, and skeleton sliders are experiencing the g-forces faced by pilots and astronauts.  Try this one: when you’re watching the ice dancing (come on, you know you do), get up and do three spins across the room from one corner to the other.  When you can do that in a straight line, speed it up, tighten the spins, and after the third one, leap into the air and come down on one foot.  Now imagine doing that on a skate.  To music.  At 20 mph.

Maybe we’d better join Bob Costas and stick with curling because, “you should be able to drink a beer while you’re competing for a gold medal.”  That’s more my speed.