![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Winter sports and Strongman
Dec. 29th, 2009 12:28 amSki-jumping:
The retirement of Janne Ahonen (the man in my ski-jumping icon) lasted even for an even shorter time than we expected, and he's back. Not doing as well as he used to, but that's being put down to a lack of practise.
Andi Widhoelzl is now commentating for Eurosport and being charming despite the dubbing. Mother and I are having an interesting debate as to who out of Gregor Schlierenzauer and Simon Amman is less intelligible in German.
Other than that, Eurosport are doing a 'let's humanise the winter-sportspersons', I think mostly for those silly markets where they aren't already huge and yesterday's was Martin Schmitt (http://martin-schmitt.smaitec.de/index2.html). For all that I may have only cheered him on to wind my Mother up (in a display of determined awkwardness, she cheers for various Finns and Scandanavians in winter sports), I now find him adorable beyond all belief.
I also love how friendly they all are - for those that don't watch it, Schmitt was awesome then went through a rough patch that he's only just now getting out of, and one of the questions he got was 'was Wolfgang Loitzl's (http://www.wolfgang-loitzl.de/) success after many years of trying an inspiration for you to keep going?' and he said yes, and how nice it was to see Loitzl, who was such a hard worker etc, finally get the success he deserved. That came after Schlierenzauer (http://www.gregorschlierenzauer.at/) had been interviewed about last year's 4 Hills and he went how awesome it was for 'Wolfie', always the backbone of the Austrian team, to finally get some individual glory.
~~~~
I think the friendliness is also why I like Strongman quite so much. I must once again declare my love for Travis Ortmayer, he's just so lovely.
The Russian whose name I couldn't remember, and who is great fun and can be whimsically witty in what is at least his second language is Michael Koklayaev. Richard Skog was his usual amusing self, and I'm hoping that Darren Sadler will one day get the success he deserves for trying his best despite only being 5 foot 10.
The retirement of Janne Ahonen (the man in my ski-jumping icon) lasted even for an even shorter time than we expected, and he's back. Not doing as well as he used to, but that's being put down to a lack of practise.
Andi Widhoelzl is now commentating for Eurosport and being charming despite the dubbing. Mother and I are having an interesting debate as to who out of Gregor Schlierenzauer and Simon Amman is less intelligible in German.
Other than that, Eurosport are doing a 'let's humanise the winter-sportspersons', I think mostly for those silly markets where they aren't already huge and yesterday's was Martin Schmitt (http://martin-schmitt.smaitec.de/index2.html). For all that I may have only cheered him on to wind my Mother up (in a display of determined awkwardness, she cheers for various Finns and Scandanavians in winter sports), I now find him adorable beyond all belief.
I also love how friendly they all are - for those that don't watch it, Schmitt was awesome then went through a rough patch that he's only just now getting out of, and one of the questions he got was 'was Wolfgang Loitzl's (http://www.wolfgang-loitzl.de/) success after many years of trying an inspiration for you to keep going?' and he said yes, and how nice it was to see Loitzl, who was such a hard worker etc, finally get the success he deserved. That came after Schlierenzauer (http://www.gregorschlierenzauer.at/) had been interviewed about last year's 4 Hills and he went how awesome it was for 'Wolfie', always the backbone of the Austrian team, to finally get some individual glory.
~~~~
I think the friendliness is also why I like Strongman quite so much. I must once again declare my love for Travis Ortmayer, he's just so lovely.
The Russian whose name I couldn't remember, and who is great fun and can be whimsically witty in what is at least his second language is Michael Koklayaev. Richard Skog was his usual amusing self, and I'm hoping that Darren Sadler will one day get the success he deserves for trying his best despite only being 5 foot 10.
