The World Competes

There are only 13 more days until the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. Two weeks from now, the first medals will already be earned in the downhill men’s skiing competition, the women’s 7.5 km sprint in biathlon, women’s moguls, normal hill ski jumping, and the 5000m men’s speed skating.

Ghana will be making its Winter Olympic debut this year, in the field of ski jumping. Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, who has only been training in the sport for about five years, trains primarily in an indoor ski slope in London. However well he does in the actual event, the “Snow Leopard”, named after his leopard-print ski uniform, should be proud to make history for his country.

Clara Hughes, who is a speed skater and a cyclist for Canada, was chosen to carry Canada’s flag during the opening ceremonies. In 2002, she became the fourth athlete to ever receive a medal in both the winter and summer Olympics.

Claudia Pechstein, who has received speed-skating medals for Germany in every Olympics since Albertville in 1992, will probably not be competing in Vancouver, even though she is still in the sport. She was banned from skating for two years due to blood doping. Unless she succeeds in court, she will not be participating in the Vancouver Olympics.