This was a great week if you enjoy watching sports and elite athletes. The Super Bowl last Sunday and the week of competition in the Winter Olympics. I enjoy watching athletes that have reached the level of excellence to compete with other competitors from the world.
I taught a class called Kinesiology which was a study of movement in the human body. There was the anatomical portion analyzing which muscles are needed to be strengthened for a specific sport. Then there was the biomechanics portion that covered the center of gravity, the direction of force application, the angle of projection, and all the variables that are required to reach that high level of performance.
This included the equipment used or worn to make the effort more efficient. When watching the performances of the athletes and understanding the different equipment they used to aid them in their quest for an Olympic medal, I recalled all the material covered in the class.
For instance, you see the sport of skating. Figure skating, speed skating, and hockey, all use skates in their sport. But Figure skates have hollow ground blades and a shoe that is only one step behind a ski boot. A woman coming down from 10 feet in the air and spinning with multiple rotations will need all the support she can have to keep from falling when she hits the ice. And the hollow ground blade allows traction on the ice for sharp turns and spins.
A speed skater needs a longer blade that is flatground as they want the least amount of friction possible and the largest amount of surface on the ice to get as much force produced to reach speeds between 30-35 miles per hour. A good analogy is the 5K distance that runners are familiar with. The world record for elite runners is between 14-15 minutes. The speed skater covers the 5K distance in just over 6 minutes. The shoe of a speed skater is lower and allows the ankle to bend as they go around the curve of the rink.
Hockey players need a sturdy skate and blade. Depending on the athlete, some use a flat ground blade for speed and others with very strong legs are drifting to a hollow ground blade for sharp turns. Hockey players need a right-orleft handed stick with a desired curved blade taped with black electric tape, white adhesive tape or green tape depending on how they like the feel of the stick with the frozen hard rubber puck. Most players tape their own sticks.
Each sport is skating but each blade has its shape and sharpened edge to perform at the necessary high level of skill.
Skiing has downhill, slalom, jumping, and cross-country skiing. Each ski is different to meet the demands of that particular sport. Ski jumping has a wide, flexible ski that helps with air resistance to stay in the air longer. Jumpers are only about 10 feet or less off the ground. I can tell you looking down from the top of a ski jump is very intimidating.
Cross country skis are narrow and have to be a combination of “running” and also gliding.
Downhill has multiple layers and hard edges to grip the snow on sharp turns. When a skier reaches a speed of nearly 80 miles and has to turn, they want that ski to stay on the snow and not slip to the side.
When elite athletes compete, they are all on the same level of skill. The time between winning and losing often comes down to thousandths of a second. A downhill skier that is in the air after hitting a bump is in a tuck position to reduce air friction. If they come out of that truck, they lose that thousandths of a second because of more surface area of air and finish in second or third place.
Luge athletes all finish in :52 seconds. Timing for the top 20 then depends on the height they go around the curves and lose that thousandths of second after their four runs.
The athletes that manage to not have “small” faults will win the gold.
