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Hoss

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Curling is pretty silly, but addictive to watch!

the costumes/uniforms/outfits or whatever you call the gettup the speed folks wear is interesting. I read a story that the suits are made for each athlete, after doing a laser body scan, to make them skin tight, more aerodynamic. No amount of tailoring is ever going to make me aerodynamic!

I dont understand most winter sports. I guess that comes from always having lived in the south.

the athletes are certainly dedicated. in my opinion an athlete should only be allowed to compete in one olympic. some of those folks are on their 4th. 

Sorry figure skaters, but if it doesn't  have a ball or a finish line, it ain't a sport. 

 

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2 hours ago, Hoss said:

Curling is pretty silly, but addictive to watch!

the costumes/uniforms/outfits or whatever you call the gettup the speed folks wear is interesting. I read a story that the suits are made for each athlete, after doing a laser body scan, to make them skin tight, more aerodynamic. No amount of tailoring is ever going to make me aerodynamic!

I dont understand most winter sports. I guess that comes from always having lived in the south.

the athletes are certainly dedicated. in my opinion an athlete should only be allowed to compete in one olympic. some of those folks are on their 4th. 

Sorry figure skaters, but if it doesn't  have a ball or a finish line, it ain't a sport. 

 

 

I know a few hockey players who would take issue with that definition - and a few boxers, gymnasts, bull riders, weightlifters, fencers, and wrestlers.

 

LL 

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3 minutes ago, Loophole LaRue, SASS #51438 said:

 

I know a few hockey players who would take issue with that definition - and a few boxers, gymnasts, bull riders, weightlifters, fencers, and wrestlers.

 

LL 

Hockey has a "ball" (the puck) boxers, weightlifters, wrestlers, fencers have a finish line...they defeat their opponents. Bull riders sort of have a finish line, they have to stay on for 8 seconds, but its still judged on style points. gymnast and figure skaters, while I would agree are for the most part superb athletes, what they do is more of an art than a sport. 

 

 

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I got an appreciation of winter sports when the Army sent me to Germany and then New England. Cross country skiing is exhausting. Harder than a marathon. Even harder when you’re carrying a 60 lb pack and rifle. :P

And skiing down a luge run is not a good idea.

Don’t ask.

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1 hour ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

I got an appreciation of winter sports when the Army sent me to Germany and then New England. Cross country skiing is exhausting. Harder than a marathon. Even harder when you’re carrying a 60 lb pack and rifle. :P

And skiing down a luge run is not a good idea.

Don’t ask.

well, i hope it wasnt naked, backwards!!!!

 

 

I've never skied, and as long as you have to do i in the snow, and ride one of them ski-lift contraptions, I ain't likely too, but I do appreciate those biathlon competitors who ski. then shoot precision rifle. I can understand that activity, and call it a sport. Ice dancin, not so much! 

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Best part about skiing is hanging out at the lodge and drinking hot toddies.

 

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2 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

I got an appreciation of winter sports when the Army sent me to Germany and then New England. Cross country skiing is exhausting. Harder than a marathon. Even harder when you’re carrying a 60 lb pack and rifle. :P

And skiing down a luge run is not a good idea.

Don’t ask.

 

Uhh, Bob, them "luge runs" are for "luge sleds"...NOT skis! :blink:

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4 minutes ago, Dutch Wheeler said:

 

Uhh, Bob, them "luge runs" are for "luge sleds"...NOT skis! :blink:

Alas, I found that out later. Also found out what these signs meant. :huh:

4C72F904-681B-473C-8BB1-B4E5CCBAA5CF.jpeg

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You southern boys don't know it but ski hills have bunnies!  Snow bunnies!  They are all dressed up for the snow, drink  fortified hot chocolate and they giggle a lot.  I've known some guys to talk them right out of their ,,,,,,, parka.  Those heavy sweaters leave a lot for the imagination but it is fun to get warmed up with them.  I'm kinda partial to those blonde, Scandinavian, Valkyrie types.  They're purty.

 

Then there is golf.  Played with a ball.  Anytime an 80 year old man can do better than a 20 year old man, that isn't a sport.  It is an activity.  When they make it full contact, then it is a sport.  I find croquet more interesting.  At least you get to pound something into the ground and whack your opponents marker (find it awkward to say opponents ball. Just feels uncomfortable.) into next week.  That should be an Olympic sport.

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Finagler, the whole 80 vs 20 thing leaves out that the 80 yr old has skills the 20 yr old doesn't!  I took my son to the driving range once. He KNEW he could hit a golf ball further than me. and he probably could, but not straight. if it had stayed in the air long enough it woul have hit him in the back of the head! 

 

I ain't 80 yet, but i'm way closer to 80 than I am to 20. and all I can say is what i used to could do all night, now takes me all night to do! 

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3 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

I got an appreciation of winter sports when the Army sent me to Germany and then New England. Cross country skiing is exhausting. Harder than a marathon. Even harder when you’re carrying a 60 lb pack and rifle. :P

And skiing down a luge run is not a good idea.

Don’t ask.

Did it hurt???

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14 minutes ago, Jackson Rose, SASS #45478 said:

Did it hurt???

Not till I got to the bottom and the snow and ice turned into mud and gravel. The couple dozen guys screaming down behind me made it worse.

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39 minutes ago, Old Top said:

Bob,

 

At that time where you a butter bar and was a compass involved?

 

Old Top

Yes I  was and no there wasn't. There was a map though.

 

Cold War Story

 

Okay. To illustrate the leadership and judgment abilities I possessed in my meteoric, but short-lived, military career, I offer you this.

Late winter 1967: The picturesque town of Garmisch, Federal Republic of Germany.

The sky was clear and the weather mild as a group of near 100 men from the 10th Special Forces Group slithered along like a green snake. Our hideous M1942 Army-issued skis were supposed to be suitable for cross-country and downhill skiing.


They were suitable for neither.


7 feet long, wide, solid wood, heavy and painted white, the troops jokingly called them "White Stars" after the popular high-tech top of the line Kneissl White Star.

Historical note: During WWII the skis were intended to be used by the 1st Special Service Force (Devil's Brigade) in a mission to destroy German heavy water manufacturing facilities in Norway. The mission was scrapped and the skis went into warehouses until, in a stroke of military genius, someone said, "Hey, let's issue these things out! It will be hilarious"

But you dance with who you brung so off we slid on numerous forays through the Alps in our Winter Warfare training. W inter Warfare training is a lot like desert training only there's more water (beneficial) and your toes can fall off (not so beneficial).
We also used snowshoes at times. Something the locals were not at all familiar with. Neither was I, being from Florida, but that's another story for another time.

So there we were on the outskirts of the old 1936 Olympic facility. The map said we had on bodacious climb and then turned south for a few kilometers where we would pick up a truck convoy. In cross-country skiing someone has to break trail. You change off frequently when the point man gets whupped and stick a fresh body up front. We traversed up a pretty steep slope most of the morning, making frequent switchbacks as we got higher. At last we reached the top just as I rotated into the point position.
"Lucky break", I sez to myself. It's flat and packed up here. We had reached the well used Olympic site and families of Germans, ski bunnies and Jean-Claude Killy wannabe's were everywhere having a great time. We poled along with our clown skis, overstuffed rucksacks and sweat-stained berets as we waved and greeted the multitudes. They were quite used to seeing GIs wandering about the countryside. It was the Cold War period after all and we were there to keep it from warming up.
"Guten Morgen" I cheerily exclaimed to each smiling Teutonic face I encountered. "Gruss Gott" (Southern German for Howdy).

One of my team members called from behind me. "Hey Ell-Tee, do you know where we're going?"
"Of course", I said smugly, "I've got the map right chere".

For 10 minutes or so we had a marvelous time schussing along the flat manicured trails. We passed a restaurant, packed with people looking out at the sunny slopes. We also passed a sign at the entrance to a path. It was in German. My German was not too good. I ignored it.
I noticed a lot of the people up at the restaurant were standing on the balcony or inside at the pictures windows and waving excitedly at us. I waved back. I was MacArthur. I was Patton with my troops behind me on parade. I was Caesar returning triumphantly to Rome! They waved even more enthusiastically. Some would say frantically.
I waved back. American Hero smile on my face.
We passed another sign. Couldn't read that one either but one of the men behind me could. "Oh Shit" was what I heard.

It was too late.

Suddenly, the benign, pleasant pathway narrowed. We passed a small building, I thought it said, "Luger". “Odd place for a gunshop”, I thought. I was wrong. It didn't have an R on it.

Along with the narrowing came a difference in surface texture. From packed snow to....ice.

Now the Army White Star skis were pretty inadequate on snow. On ice they become instruments of death. You have no control and basic physics takes over. Momentum, inertia, gravity, all that stuff.

Next, after the solid ice surprise, came another. The angle of the narrow trail increased from 5 degrees to 25 degrees to OHMYGOD degrees. The sides of the trail rose on each side. I began to hear shouts from the long line of troops behind me. Perhaps a few curses. They faded away as the wind in my ears drowned out everything else after a few seconds. I wouldn't have been able to hear them anyway over the screams of terror. Mine.
Once you're skiing down an Olympic Luger trail (it was actually Luger without the r), you don't have a lot of control. I suppose that's why they put up those Eintritt Verboten signs. Turns out it means “Oh No You Don’t.”

 

If you ever see an Eintritt Verboten sign turn around immediately. Germans, not known for their impish sense of humor, never kid about those.

So down we went at ever increasing speed. then we hit a corner. I'd never skiied on a wall like that. Some of the fellas took that opportunity to shoot right up and out of the Trail 'o Death at that point. Actually I'm not sure that it was by choice. I think they were yelling "Yahoo" but, as I said, I couldn't hear too well.
Down, down, down we sped as I alternately prayed to the snow gods and cursed the wooden slats strapped to my feet. Sometimes I was on my skis, sometimes my butt, I even went down backwards at one point. It seemed I could hear demonic laughter in the chattering of the skis. After what seemed like 12 or 15 hours on this e-ticket ride the trail widened out. The tall ice sides dropped down. It straightened out, flattened out, and ended…..
In the late winter Bavarian mud and gravel.
While the Army skis are poorly designed they at least do slide, albeit uncontrollably, on snow an ice.
On mud and gravel they do not.
I was the first one in line to come to an abrupt stop. The other 80 or 90 men then plowed into me in rapid succession. Such a tangle of men, equipment and skis has probably not been seen since on the continent of Europe.

The good news is the only one civilian witness to my fall from Caesar/Patton-like status was an old farmer on a honey wagon about 50 yards away. He seemed interested and amused. I wondered what he did during The War.

As the groans curses and wind noise abated, I thought I heard a voice in my ear....”All Fame is fleeting”.
The incident became known as "The Charge of the Ice Brigade" I think they put a statue up to honor me at the Olympic stadium.
 

Maybe not.

 

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5 hours ago, Hoss said:

Finagler, the whole 80 vs 20 thing leaves out that the 80 yr old has skills the 20 yr old doesn't!  I took my son to the driving range once. He KNEW he could hit a golf ball further than me. and he probably could, but not straight. if it had stayed in the air long enough it woul have hit him in the back of the head! 

 

I ain't 80 yet, but i'm way closer to 80 than I am to 20. and all I can say is what i used to could do all night, now takes me all night to do! 

 

lol....

Hoss, are you calling Golf a sport???

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6 hours ago, Finagler 6853 Life said:

You southern boys don't know it but ski hills have bunnies!  Snow bunnies!  They are all dressed up for the snow, drink  fortified hot chocolate and they giggle a lot.  I've known some guys to talk them right out of their ,,,,,,, parka.  Those heavy sweaters leave a lot for the imagination but it is fun to get warmed up with them.  I'm kinda partial to those blonde, Scandinavian, Valkyrie types.  They're purty.

 

Then there is golf.  Played with a ball.  Anytime an 80 year old man can do better than a 20 year old man, that isn't a sport.  It is an activity.  When they make it full contact, then it is a sport.  I find croquet more interesting.  At least you get to pound something into the ground and whack your opponents marker (find it awkward to say opponents ball. Just feels uncomfortable.) into next week.  That should be an Olympic sport.

 

Us southern boys know all about Ski Lodges and snow bunnies. We just don't ski. ;) 

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Bob, your story was both amusing and a  source for a stroll down memory lane. How well I recall the Alps, 

Garmisch and training near Bad Tolz. Witnessing your sojourn and athletic prowress would have been a sight 

to behold, and if the witness had a cold flip top bier in hand, all the more exciting. 

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40 minutes ago, Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172 said:

Bob, your story was both amusing and a  source for a stroll down memory lane. How well I recall the Alps, 

Garmisch and training near Bad Tolz. Witnessing your sojourn and athletic prowress would have been a sight 

to behold, and if the witness had a cold flip top bier in hand, all the more exciting. 

Cold? not the Germany I know.

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