My Introduction to the Winter Olympic Games - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book, “Winter Olympics:  An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games”, Vancouver Edition, copyright 2008 by Ron C. Judd)

From Ms. Shier:

I’ve always been a fervent sports fan, which started when I was a little girl:  first, doing ballet, tap dancing and gymnastics; then, cheerleading, track and field and more gymnastics; then, jazz and rhythmic gymnastics.  This happened all the way up till the time I was a young adult, when I became very busy judging gymnastics for 10 years at many different competitions in Ontario and Alberta.  I always loved the winter sports too – specifically, the figure skating and skiing events – I was an active downhill skier at one time and I always loved to skate, though I wasn’t an expert by any means.   I’ve had personal contact with several Olympians.  These were people I knew and liked, and one of them was my cousin, Jamie Kallio, who was a biathlete at the Calgary Winter Games in 1988.  I have nothing but admiration for these dedicated athletes because of the total commitment they’ve made to their particular sport.

The aim of my new book is to compile interesting information and stories about acrobatic and artistic sports in particular, both summer and winter.  By doing so, I hope to capture the attention of both athletes and non-athletes with the inclusion of  the human-interest component as well as the technical and athletic components.  To this end, I’ve taken such material about figure skating, freestyle skiing, and snowboarding from Mr. Judd’s book and am learning more about these particular sports as I go.

There is beauty and magnificence in the human body performing sport at the elite level.  These athletes have worked diligently at perfecting their particular sport and are greatly motivated to show what they can do.  The Olympic stage is the biggest stage in the world.  I know this because I was present at the Calgary Winter Games in Canmore, Alberta to watch Jamie compete in the biathlon.  There is no stage that can equal that of the Olympic Games and that one reason alone is what the best athletes in the world will remember long after the Games are over:  that they were there participating and showing the world their wonderful talents.  The medals they win, well, that’s just gravy.

A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE GUIDE

From Mr. Judd:

This book began with a simple goal:  Assemble a compendium of knowledge about the Winter Olympics to help the average person better understand the Games.  Whether you’ll be watching in person or via broadcast, or just discussing the topic with friends, the information and stories compiled here will help you become conversant in any Winter Olympic sport.  It’s designed to give the casual fan of the Winter Games a broader context of the event throughout history, and fill in those knowledge gaps – like, how many jumps does a ski jumper take during the Nordic Combined event? – that we all have, particularly for sports most of us see only once every four years.

The material is also, I hope, interesting enough on its face – given all the lore, mystery, and fascinating backdrops of the Games – to be a worthwhile read, even for the person who is, shall we say, not very Olympics-oriented.

Either way, this guide is organized in a way that makes it easy to skip around to find something that piques your interest.

Here is a quote (from the Introduction):  “…The truth is that covering the Olympics is any good journalist’s dream assignment.  The palette of possible stories laid out before you every day is broad, diverse, and occasionally, even magical.  Good journalism, for all its acknowledged faults, is little more than good storytelling.  And good stories are rife with drama.  Few other assignments, short of war, perhaps, afford a dramatic stage as brightly lit as an Olympic Games….”.

Ms. Shier’s addendum:  Of course, this introduction is, no doubt, a very simplistic view of a complex event like the Olympic Games from a journalistic point of view, but you get the picture, right?

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.