The Winter Olympics are a mere two weeks away. Unfortunately they are being held in Mother Russia who still has the Hoppo Yonto bridled and yoked to her territorial breast, and I think I have pretty much exhausted that metaphor by now. While the term "the Winter Olympics" at most provokes a "The wha?" back home, here in Japan they take the occasion pretty seriously. Lots of media coverage, countdown calendar, wonderfully inane Olympic theme song (you can listen to it hear), and the sports news is dominated by 'ski jumping', 'figure skating' and 'curling'. Japan tends to be quite good at the, how do I put this, more effete events where judges and a lot of glittering sequin are involved. They tend to do less well in the swaggering and machismo competitions like alpine skiing, the nordic combined, and the one with guns. Cian though is planning to change all that. As the previous post showed he is already a shoe-in for gold in the luge (or 'death by sled' as it is also known), and he plans to add to that with gold in the alpine downhill.
We spent this morning at Danpara Ski-jo which ranks up there with the Streif course at Hahnenkamm in Austria as the most demanding and dangerous course on the downhill World Cup circuit. Not that you'd think that the way Cian effortless skied it. The boy knows no fear. Or how to carve a nice, sinuous s-turn. He goes downhill, he goes down fast, and you'd better get the hell out of his way.
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