The 2014 Sochi Olympic organizers were initially planning on building the world’s fastest, most difficult track for the next Olympics, but after the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, they are changing their plans. They still intend on building a course that is “technically very demanding”, but they are being careful to build a course that is safe.

The Olympic organizers plan on building the course as soon as possible. In fact, they hope to open the track and hold competitions on it by 2011.

In my view, building a safe track is a good idea. No matter what kind of track you have, the top Olympians will still be able to go down the track faster than your average bear. While the Whistler track is not extremely dangerous for the medal contenders, it is dangerous for people from the smaller countries (like Georgia) and from countries that don’t have well-developed luge programs. We can’t expect Felix Loch performance (he won the gold) from a Jamaican luger. The track needs to be safe for the Jamaican, as well as those that have a chance at the medal.

If you’re old enough to remember Chernobyl, you’ll remember that it was a major nuclear disaster. Although radiation levels seem to have returned to normal now, they were pretty high after it went off in April 1986. Alexi Salamone was born in June 1987. His development was affected, and he was born with twisted legs that were later amputated.

Salamone was left by his birth parents. He describes the orphanage that he lives in as an “alley”. His birth parents, Joe and Sue Salamone, adopted him at age 6. He has an adoptive sister, Tatiana, that came from the same orphanage.

At age 10, he was introduced to sledge hockey. He looks forward to returning to the country of his birth, but he is unsure of whether he will look up his birth parents. More information about Alexi Salamone can be found in this Yahoo article.

Russia was not happy over their results in Vancouver. Although they had high hopes, they didn’t even make the top 10 in the medal results. They walked away with three gold medals, five silvers, and seven bronzes.

As a result, Vladimir Putin even started making comments. I’m sure there has been some pressure on the coaches and the athletic directors, because in the month since the games, there have been four people that have quit their positions. On Tuesday, the head of the Russian Freestyle Skiing Federation resigned. On Monday, the head of the Cross Country Skiing Federation quit. The president of the Russian Olympic committee and the deputy sports minister have also quit.

Is it a wise move for Russia to pressure all these people to quit four years before hosting an Olympics? Perhaps, if Russia can find more qualified people to take their spots, they might do better in certain sports. The opposite has also happened before. Sometimes athletes switch coaches and they end up performing worse later on.

I’m just thinking out loud here, but wouldn’t the Russian Olympic Committee president be pretty busy right now? He has more to do than just making sure that the athletes do well in sports. In four years, Russia will have to host the Olympics, and someone has to make all the preparations.

I would like to see the 2014 Olympics turn out well. The last time the Olympics were held in Russia, it didn’t turn out well: the most massive boycott in history was held. So I hope that they can get their act together in time to host the Olympics, although I personally don’t care how well their athletes do (apologies to my Russian aunt Ludmilla).

If you’re planning on a trip to a future Olympics, money may be one of your top concerns. Another consideration that you may want to keep in mind is the language barrier.

If you can read this blog without the extensive use of a dictionary or google translator, then you don’t really have to do a lot of language study. Most tourist areas have employees that speak at least a little bit of English. If you’re planning on a London trip, nearly everyone will speak English. One of the primary languages used in the Olympics is English. If you’re traveling to the London games, or just want to get to the Olympics, see a few sports and go home, you’ll be okay.

However, if you plan on going to Russia or Brazil, and don’t want to be confined to the touristy areas and want to venture out a bit, you may want to start looking into learning Russian or Portuguese. In particular, the average Russian does not speak English.

Don’t let the Russian Cyrillic alphabet scare you off. While the different letters look intimidating, every Russian letter has an English-sounding equivalent, and you can learn to read it in an hour or so. From then on, it’s like learning any other language (I’ve taken a year of Russian). Portuguese is not the same thing as Spanish, but a background in Spanish could help.

You don’t have to be an expert in a language in order to get by in a foreign country. I lived in Italy for three years, and although I do speak and read some Italian, I am certainly not fluent. I do know enough to go places, order at a restaurant, and leave the impression that I’m at least trying to speak their language. In order to engage in conversations with the locals, you’ll want to learn more; but if your main goal is to get out a bit on a once-in-a-lifetime trip, you’ll want to learn at least some of the language.

My favorite language program is Rosetta Stone. I’m currently using it to brush up on my Russian, in the hopes that I might get the chance to go to Sochi in 2014. It really makes learning any language fairly easy. Even my seven-year-old is using it to learn Chinese.

While knowing a foreign language is not a prerequisite for visiting, it certainly helps. I have seen firsthand how attempting to speak in a foreign language will earn you more respect than just speaking English. While it does take a little bit of effort, it can make your Olympic experience more enjoyable.

Canada may have won the able bodied gold medal, but the United States took the gold in Paralympic sledge hockey. Canada lost to Japan in the semi-finals, and then lost to Norway in the bronze-medal game. Japan won the silver medal.

One of the top US sledge hockey players is Alexi Salamone, who was born in Russia after the Chernobyl accident, and was born with twisted legs that had to be amputated. He hopes to return to his land of birth in the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Hopefully to win another gold medal. Salamone made one of the two goals, and also had an assist.

The US goalie, Steve Cash, played an outstanding game of defense, making five saves.

The 2010 Vancouver Paralympics are winding down. The only events left in the games are the 1 km sprint events in cross-country skiing, and the closing ceremonies. The next Olympic event after that will be the 2010 Youth Olympics in Singapore.

The Russians aren’t happy. They’re so upset, in fact, that president Medvedev is asking the people responsible for preparing the Olympic athletes to resign. Those that don’t, he threatens to fire. Russia only won three gold medals, and 15 medals overall. They were hoping to win at least 30 medals, and place in the top three countries winning medals.

I can see how they might be disappointed. Once powerhouses in figure skating, they fail to reach the podium at all in pairs or the ladies skate, breaking a streak that has been going on for decades. Evgeni Plushenko wound up with silver when he was hoping for gold. They didn’t exactly have a hot year.

I have been thinking over the last couple of weeks about what it takes for a country to have a lot of great athletes. The country really has to invest in a sport to see medals. The United States Ski Team wasn’t able to fund the ski cross team, and we had two competitors, no female competitors, and no medals. It does have money for skiing, and we had Lindsey Vonn, Bode Miller, and Julia Mancuso.

Russia is not in its economic heyday right now. In fact, they haven’t been doing well for quite some time. It takes years to make a champion, especially in sports like figure skating. If the people (or government) of Russia does not invest in its athletes, they’re not going to see results. And that takes money.

China has been doing well in the Olympics, and I expect them to do better in the future. China has a growing economy, and invests the time and money in its athletes. They work even their snowboarders hard. They will probably do well in both London and Sochi.

Will Russia get back to its glory days? I think that they can perform better in Sochi than they did in Vancouver. Russia is improving economically, while at the same time the Western nations are having a tough time supporting their athletes. They could do better in Sochi, but I’m not sure that they have enough time to become the Russian powerhouse that they once were. Not in four years.

One of the more recent controversies in the Olympics (and there have been plenty) involve women’s ski jumping. There are two separate disciplines, ski jumping and nordic combined, that involve ski jumping, and women are excluded from both of them. My question is… why?

Olympic rules require that any new event added to the Olympics must include women. That’s why when they added snowboardcross, or ski cross, they have both women’s and men’s events. Double’s luge has technically been coed since 1992. These old rules don’t require that the IOC add women’s events to already existing disciplines, like ski jumping.

Women have tried to get ski jumping added since 1998. For 2010, the ski jumpers even tried, unsuccessfully, to force inclusion. Their request was shot down.

Gian Franco Kasper, IOC member and president of the International Ski Federation (FIS), was quoted as saying in 1995 that ski jumping “seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.” I believe that a similar argument was made for running the 800 meter competition… after the 800 meter competition in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, some of the women dropped to the ground from exhaustion. Doctors were quoted saying that women who competed in such events would “become old too soon”. After that event, all races longer than 200 meters were banned until 1960.

Will we see women’s ski jumping in the 2014 Sochi Olympics? So far, I haven’t seen anything to suggest it. There currently isn’t a world cup competition for women’s ski jumping, only a continental cup. I do think that there’s a good chance that it will be included in the 2018 Olympics, and by 2022, I’d be surprised if it was not included. But that will probably be too late for today’s ski jumpers.

More information on women’s ski jumpers can be found at Time.com. For information about the 1928 Amsterdam Race, see The Complete Book of the Olympics, 2008 Edition, pp. 305-306. Photo of Lindsey Van, US ski jumper.

Now if you are like I was the first time I heard of this, I had no clue where Sochi was. Sochi is located in Western Russia, off the Baltic Sea. What surprised me the most about this location is that it is a subtropical location. They’re having problems with the snow in Vancouver… why in the world would they hold the Winter Olympics in a subtropical city? It makes no sense to me. I guess there is a ski resort located in the Caucasus mountains. Let’s just hope this subtropical location has snow in four years.

The Sochi Olympics will start on February 7th, 2014, so in exactly four years, the athletes will be competing. While I’m sure that there will be plenty of English speakers there, there’s still plenty of time to learn Russian before the Olympics.