On our second day in PyeongChang, we eagerly anticipated my cousin's first Olympic skeleton competition that evening. The race for the gold medal took place over two nights, with two heats each night. For those unfamiliar with skeleton, it's a sport in the bobsled/luge family where sliders ride on a sled head-first down a frozen track at speeds of up to 80 mph (130 km/h). Yep, they're insane!
We got to the sliding center early - good thing because it was a HIKE up there. Not only was the sliding center itself perched atop a hill (pics in my first Olympics post), but once we reached the entrance, we hiked all the way up to the top of the track to get to the start line (the Korea Alpensia track winds downhill for over a mile (2018 meters long)). We wanted to watch the first heat from the start line to see the athletes up close as they prepared to race, push (what the start is called, where the slider sprints on the ice while pushing their sled and then jumps onto the sled head first)...and most of all to cheer loudly for our cousin!! Here's a shot of her at the start line preparing for her first run...and some of her fan club chanting away :)
Skeleton is a cool (albeit unconventional) spectator sport because you get such an up-close view of the athletes. You can literally stand up against the edge of the track all along the course. Yes, they wiz by in the blink of an eye, but witnessing that speed in person is unbelievable. TV does not do justice to how fast the sliders are going. To get alternate perspectives of the runs, we started walking down along the track during the second heat. Every so often as we were walking, a slider would zoom by!
No, those photos aren't sideways! Some of the turns are literally like walls of ice, where the athletes slide perpendicular to the ground.
Back at the hotel, I checked our steps for the day.
I knew we'd done a lot of walking, but 60 flights of stairs?! Good thing Grams decided to cheer from back home, because the cold and climbing were definitely a challenge. Isn't she the cutest?!
This was a day our family will never forget and I'm glad so many of us were able to experience it together. And there was still more skeleton competition and Olympic adventures to come the next day...