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.

Earlier this month, president Obama met with Haitian president Rene Preval, who said that they still have a need for medical supplies, housing, and food.

Recent rains in Haiti have made conditions miserable for residents; many are still living in tents. The spring rains are coming soon, which will make things worse.

I’m glad to see that they are finding use for it, rather than tossing it out.

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).

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.

Biathlon was actually a way of training for fighting in the Nordic countries. Soldiers there would have to be able to travel over the snow, and of course would have to know how to shoot. While they might be able to ride around in tanks now, the tanks were very primitive in 1924.

So I don’t get why comedians are so dismissive of the biathlon; however, I think that they would have a heyday with blind biathlon. I suppose the only reason we haven’t heard jokes about it is because most comedians don’t know about it. Blind people with guns? Sounds a little dangerous, right?

Probably not. The blind paralympians have guns, but they also have guides to make sure that they’re skiing in the right direction, and actually are pointing the guns at the target, rather than another skier, or someone in the stands watching. Furthermore, that wouldn’t win them any medals. I’m not sure what the penalty for shooting someone would be, but I’m guessing that it might lead to disqualification.

Blind biathlon may sound a little odd, but the biathletes actually use a special gun that will send the information about how close they are to their target with sound. So even though they cannot see the target, if they’re pointing at it correctly, they will hear a special tone. You can read more about the blind biathlon at Yahoo Sports.

On another slightly different note, Canada’s Brian McKeever, whom I have written about before, and was going to be the first Paralympic cross-country skier to ski in the able body Olympics (Canada eventually replaced him with somebody else), is one of the blind Biathletes. He won a gold medal in the 20 km race that took place on Monday. Good for him.

Nichols became disabled in 2000 when she was out snowboarding with her friends. She decided to try a back flip. It would be her last attempt. She landed on her back, on a rock, and had to be transported to the hospital. Alana found out that she was paralyzed from the waist down.

She earned a basketball scholarship to the University of Arizona, and from there ended up on the US Paralympic team. She ended up with a gold medal from the 2008 Beijing Paralympics.

Just 16 months ago, she started training as a Paralympic Skier. When she told her coach that she wanted to make it to Vancouver, they told her to forget about it, and to just concentrate on getting better. One gold medal later, she proved them wrong.

Congratulations, Alana, on winning the first gold medal for the United States in the 2010 Vancouver Paralympics; and for winning gold medals in both summer and winter sports.

If you watched the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, you may remember the torchbearer who arrived in the stadium in a wheelchair, Rick Hansen. I didn’t know anything about him prior to the games, but it turns out, he has a pretty interesting story.

He became a paraplegic at the age of 15 when he ended up getting involved in a car accident. Hansen didn’t let that stop him. He earned a degree from the University of British Columbia, and became a paraplegic athlete, winning three gold medals, two silvers, and a bronze at the Paralympics in 1980 and 1984.

In 1985, he took a trek around the world in a wheelchair, visiting four different continents and travelling 40,000 miles over a period of 26 months. This “Man in Motion” tour raised more than $26 million for spinal cord research, and inspired John Parr’s song “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)”. That song reached number on on the Billboard Hot 100 in September. I remember the song, but I just thought it was a song at the time. Hansen’s journey will be the subject of a new movie, Heart of a Dragon, which is expected to be released later on this year. It looks pretty good:

A comment from a reader got me to thinking… most of us really don’t know about Paralympic skiing. I didn’t until I started reading about it. Since Thursday is Sports Day on this blog, I thought I’d write about adaptive skiing. How is it different than regular skiing?

Since there are several different kinds of disability, the Paralympic games allow people with different kinds of disabilities to compete. Currently, the Paralympic games have skiing races for visually impaired racers, sitting racers, and standing racers.

Visually impaired racers, of course have trouble seeing. You might have heard about Canada’s Brian McKeever, who was supposed to ski for Canada in the regular Vancouver Olympics. Turns out that some of Canada’s other skiers did so well in the earlier events that he was excluded from the final race selection. Had he competed in the Vancouver Olympics, he would have had to ski alone. In the Paralympics, he will be able to ski with a sighted guide. So will all the other racers.

Standing racers often use regular skis, although their poles are sometimes a little bit different than regular ski poles. Some of these skiers have lost a leg in a war zone, others are disabled in other ways, but can skill ski while standing. Downhill skiers can use prosthetic arms and legs.

Racers that can’t stand use what is called a sit-ski. This is a kind of chair attached to skis. These racers are often paraplegic for one reason or another.

Hopefully that explains some of the terms that I’ve been using, or that you might hear if you decide to watch some of the Paralympic broadcasts over the next couple of weeks. :-)

With the 2010 Vancouver Paralympics starting this week, I thought that I’d take a look back at the previous Paralympic games in Torino.

Although the United States was second in the Olympic rankings in the able-bodied Torino Olympics, it placed fifth in the rankings for the Paralympics, with 7 gold medals and 12 total. Russia blew away the competition, with 13 gold medals and 33 total medals. 39 nations and 486 athletes participated. There were 20 events.

Torino was the first year that the Paralympics were broadcast over the Internet (as they will be in Vancouver). Out of all the drug tests that were given, there were no doping violations (I’d like to see that one in the regular Olympics).

Here’s a video that recaps the 2006 Paralympic experience from the point of view of the Polish team: