Skrifað um Björgvin Björgvinsson í kanadískum blöðum

Björgvin hefur nú þegar vakið athygli og hann er ekki einu sinni byrjaður að keppa. Hér er grein úr Vancouver Sun:

 

WHISTLER — The world’s top female skiers couldn’t get a downhill training run in Thursday.

But, Cristian Javier Simari Birkner, Argentina’s, uh, skiing legend, and the delightfully monikered Bjoergvin Bjoergvinsson of Iceland — good thing skiers don’t wear namebars across their backs like hockey players — did get one done.

Ah, the vagaries of Whistler Mountain weather.

On another challenging day of light snow and fog and later big fluffy flakes that Cypress would kill for, the first women’s downhill training run for Sunday’s super combined was cancelled. The men, however, did manage to squeeze in a full field, but length-shortened, training run for Saturday’s marquee downhill.

In an unprecedented move for an Olympic Games, the International Ski Federation (FIS) scheduled both training runs for 9:30 a.m. starts on adjacent courses.

Since both runs merge at the end into one common finish area, FIS decided to have the men stop a couple of hundred metres from the finish. That paid off as the men ended their run right where a persistent layer of fog was sitting.

The fog did, however, cause a 50-minute delay in the start of the women’s training run.

Then just after it finally did get started, a crash by the second skier out of the gate, American Stacey Cook, resulted in another long hold while she was helicoptered off the course as a precaution. By the time that was completed, the snowfall had turned heavy, the fog had got thicker and the run was cancelled.

Cook was not seriously hurt and could be skiing again Friday.

Getting the men’s training run in was a huge relief for FIS after Wednesday’s scheduled first training run had to be cancelled because of fog after only 42 of the 87 skiers were able to make it down the Dave Murray Downhill.

FIS requires at least one complete training run before a downhill race can be held. So even if Friday’s final scheduled training run is cancelled by weather, the race, a key feature of the broadcast networks’ opening day of competiton, could still go Saturday.

Manuel Osborne-Paradis of North Vancouver, a medal contender, wasn’t stressing about the weather or a potential delay in running the race. He noted that, technically, Olympic organizers have two weeks to get the downhill race run.

“Maybe we’ll be rivalling the [gold medal hockey game on Feb. 28],” he cracked. “They’ll see what they should be airing, the downhill or the gold medal game.”

Given this country’s hockey obsession, Manny figured he knew how that one would turn out.

“Yeah, we might be running at 9:30 in the morning so we can get some air time. [Or] between periods.”

Austrian veteran Michael Walchhofer posted the fastest training run time of one minute, 34.46 seconds. He was followed by Robbie Dixon of North Vancouver in 1:34.55 and Erik Guay of Mont Tremblant, Que., in 1:34.68.

Swiss veteran Didier Cuche, the hottest speed skier on the World Cup circuit and the man who was fastest on Wednesday, was initially listed as having the fastest time Thursday, but was later disqualified for missing a gate.

“Training runs are training runs, everyone’s trying out different things, looking for that right line,” said Dixon. “It’s nice to get the confidence from skiing the training runs well, but you can’t get all psyched about that. You’ve got to look towards race day. Try to do the same things and hope that it works out.”

Osborne-Paradis, challenged by the fog and flat light late in his run, was just 22nd in 1:35.91.

Bjoergvinsson and Simari Birkner, by the way, wound up 76th and 77th, respectively, nearly nine seconds back of Walchhofer.

They won’t be medal threats, but hey, they are Olympians.

 

(http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Olympic+skiing+downhill+training+okay+women+cancelled/2551670/story.html)

 

Ég get annars bætt við  þetta að í dag fór ég yfir í Ólympíuþorpið til að sjá móttökuathöfnina fyrir Íslendingana, og reyndar önnur lið líka. Set kannski inn myndir fljótlega.

 

Athugasemdir

[Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson, 12.2.2010 kl. 07:46]

Ég skil ekki af hverju að þjóð úr hitabeltinu, eins og Íslendingar, séu að keppa á Ólympíuleikunum. Ég vissi ekki einu sinni, fyrr en nú, að leikarnir væru í gangi, - nei, annars ég sá frétt um daginn að það væri allt að bráðna í Vancouver. Þá ætti okkar mönnum að ganga vel.