fedward, tumbling

So You’re Watching the Winter Olympics

Since I was nine years old I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the Winter Olympics.  It was 1980, the year the Games were in Lake Placid and thus well-televised.  I grew up in Oklahoma, which featured neither mountains nor heavy snow, so all the sports were essentially unavailable to me except for the indoor ones, and as for those I never got to any Tulsa Oilers games (at that age I was barely aware Tulsa even had a hockey team - soccer yes, hockey no) and I didn’t particularly care for figure skating.

But in 1980, two sports in particular appealed to me:  hockey and bobsled.  Hockey should be obvious here, since that was the Miracle On Ice (and I remember how the euphoria of the victory over Russia was tempered by the fact there was still ANOTHER GAME to play, and what a nail-biter that was).  Bobsled, though, appealed to my nine-year-old, Oklahoman heart as only something unattainable could.

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