In Visitors, I invite one person each month to share perspectives on a sport, a sporting event, sporting aspects or any thing in between. This month, Haakon Moerk from Norway joins us to give insights into Norway’s winter sports culture and history. Part one can be read here. The following is the concluding part. If you would like to contribute for a future edition of Visitors, do not hesitate to e-mail me.

Another sport on the scene was biathlon. A sport molded on cross-country skiing at first, it was difficult to comprehend for viewers, as the biathletes shot on balloons to avoid penalty minutes and the aggregate result wasn’t really known until well after the event. Though Norwegians have a penchant for sports with complicated rules for time calculation, this was taking it too far. Magnar Solberg, a policeman by trade and a true amateur, won Olympic gold both in Grenoble ‘68 and Sapporo ‘72, but never earned anything from it.

Cross-country skiing began to see a small revival, however. It had by now reached the television screens - where viewers were often offered a view of the snow and the forest as the cameras waited for each skier to appear - butafter Gjermund Eggen’s 50 km victory at the home World Championships in 1966, Norwegian skiers failed to back that up with consistent performances. Norway won three of the 20 available men’s gold medals in Olympic and World skiing in the 1970s; the women zero of 16. Norwegians were seen as too backward, too stuck in the old times with meal breaks and gentlemen in jumpers and knickerbockers out in the forest - while the Soviets and East Germans swept the 1974 World Championship with their skis made of glass fibre. Norwegians still fondly remember Magne Myrmo - the last world champion on wooden skis.

Indeed, the resistance to change has been a particular part of Norwegian winter sports culture. Norwegians claim “this is what has made the sport so popular, don’t remove it!” In the 1980s, the American Bill Koch began to experiment with one ski out of the prepared tracks, as he thought it helped him push backwards on the ground (to gain more forward momentum). It worked: Koch won the silver medal on the 30 km in Oslo 1982, behind Lars Erik Eriksen, as Norwegian skiers once again got some good performances at home. Koch also totalled the most points during the World Cup in 1981/82, and remains the only non-European to win the World Cup.

Without mastery of the new technique - known as “skating” since the leg movement of pushing backwards on the snow was similar to what skaters did on the ice - Norwegians were left totally behind on the men’s side. The Swede Gunde Svan dominated the decade, winning seven World Championship titles, four Olympic titles, and five World Cup titles, and the only thing that kept Norwegians interested were the times - and the successes of the women, who proved they could ski too, only 20 years after they had been cautiously introduced into the World Championship with a 5km event in 1962.

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In Visitors, I invite one person each month to share perspectives on a sport, a sporting event, sporting aspects or any thing in between. This month, Haakon Moerk from Norway joins us to give insights into Norway’s winter sports culture and history. If you would like to contribute for a future edition of Visitors, do not hesitate to e-mail me.

Like in many other countries, sports have a long history in Norway. Even in Snorre’s sagas about the medieval kings there are tales about young noblemen competing against each other, and taunting each other about their respective abilities. However, there exists little recorded history of organised ball games such as in England, Italy and the old Aztec empire, possibly due to the low population density and the long winters that prevented running freely. Instead, Norwegian sports legends concentrate on skiing and skating, and those two sports have retained a high position on the Norwegian ladder until this day.

The Norwegians claim that “the cradle of skiing” lies in Morgedal, Telemark, a small village with approximately 300 citizens. The skiing brothers Hemmestveit, along with ski inventor Sondre Norheim, all came from this snowy village, and dominated the Norwegian skiing scene for much of the 19th century. However, although skiing events, particularly ski jumping, had been hosted in the cities since the mid-1850s, the main cross-country skiers still came from rural settlements, where there was ample opportunity to practise - prepared skiing tracks in the forests around the cities were not yet used by most city dwellers.

While rural dwellers skied between places and developed cross-country and telemark skiing, and also the word “slalom”, speed skating developed as the city sport, as a kind of wintertime relative to track running. The first recorded speed skating race in Norway dates back to 1863, on the sea outside Oslo. Due to the ease of making a speed skating track in the city - often just a case of watering over an athletics track - people flocked to the stadias to watch their heroes, with the 1884 skating race involving the Norwegian skating pioneer Axel Paulsen and a Dutch champion, Renke van Der Zee, drew almost 30,000 spectators. By now, the skating administrators had determined the format that has been common in long track all through its remaining history: the skaters going in pairs against each other, with two marked lanes (the inner and outer) with the skaters changing after every lane, so that no skater could interfere with the other. In the end, the skater with the lowest time won, regardless of what pair he skated in. However, quadathlon (allround) tournaments were quickly introduced, so that the competition would not be immediately over after one race. In the beginning, the winner had to take three of the four races, but as distance specialisation became common and it became almost impossible to win three races, the “time points” (or converting the 5000- and 1500-metre times into how long it would take to skate a 500-metre with the same pace) were introduced.

Speed skating became a city sport because of viewer accessibility. Unlike all other winter sports bar ski jumping, all the action took place in front of the spectators, who could even time the athletes themselves if they so desired. By contrast, cross country skiing took place through the forests, with the athletes appearing one by one as they crossed the finish line. In addition, skating arenas were close to the major city centres, and were often used as football or athletics stadiums in summer. However, much the same applied to ski jumping, where the major event of the season took place at Holmenkollen - three miles outside Oslo. Thus, the ski jumpers, led by the Ruud family from Konsgberg, enjoyed good standing throughout the 30s, while the cross country skiers - who admittedly didn’t win much in competition with Swedes and Finns - were largely forgotten. They were also faced with competition from the athletes in Nordic combined, the ski jumping and cross country put together, using a complicated system similar to that in decathlon.

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In Visitors, I invite one person each month to share perspectives on a sport, a sporting event, sporting aspects or any thing in between. This week, Warren Kelly, who had written about the NHL season, joins us to analyse the NHL playoffs. If you would like to contribute for a future edition of Visitors, do not hesitate to e-mail me.

By Warren Kelly

The NHL playoffs are over. The season itself was a study in contrast and surprise – the playoffs were a fitting end to that season. Major market teams that everyone thought would go all the way were swept. Small market teams who had never had playoff success rolled over everyone in their way. And the NHL proved that it doesn’t matter where the team is, how much money it has to spend, or any of that – anyone really can win the Stanley Cup.

Round 1 started off with a list of A players – the New Jersey Devils, the New York Rangers, the Detroit Red Wings, the Dallas Stars – and a list of the “also rans” – the Carolina Hurricanes, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, the Edmonton Oilers, the Buffalo Sabres, the Colorado Avalanche, the Nashville Predators. The A teams were expected to move on, and the also rans were expected to roll over and let them. But it didn’t work out that way at all.

New York and New Jersey ran into each other in round 1. This was expected to be the tough series, but Jersey swept the Rangers. Detroit met bottom-seed Edmonton, and lost in six games, showing fans exactly what was in store for them this year in the playoffs. Edmonton consistently outplayed their opponents, and left a lot of “experts” guessing. The Stars, who were a popular pick to win it all this season, lost in five games to a Colorado team who also took everyone by surprise. The underdogs were all over the favorites early on – with the exception of the Jersey Devils. And there was speculation about how long they would last.

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In Visitors, I invite one person each week to share perspectives on a sport, a sporting event, sporting aspects or any thing in between. This week, Warren Kelly a huge ice hockey and NHL fan, joins us to give his thoughts on the NHL season behind us. If you would like to contribute for a future edition of Visitors, do not hesitate to e-mail me.

The Season That Almost Wasn’t

By Warren Kelly

A year ago, nobody was really quite sure if there was going to be an NHL season this year at all. Debate and argument from both sides of a bitter labor dispute threatened the sport – the only professional sport I’ve really enjoyed watching in about five years.

But when the puck dropped on the 2005-2006 NHL season, it dropped on a sport that had changed dramatically. There were rules changes that were designed to increase scoring. Sudden Death rules were eliminated – ties would once more be decided by shootout. A lot of people wondered how the fans would react. I wasn’t sure I would like the changes. I am a goalie fan, so I wasn’t thrilled with the new rules limiting goalies – I really didn’t care about high scoring games. I enjoy watching skilled net minders taking care of business, and I was skeptical.

The NHL did suffer for the elimination of the ‘04-05 season – ESPN dropped them like the proverbial hot potato. Even when the league picked up a cable contract, it was with the Outdoor Life Network (who?), which most hockey fans (myself included) had no access to. Thousands of fans throughout the US found themselves limited to watching the local teams, which was great for fans in Detroit, not so much for fans in Ohio, or Georgia, or anyone who followed a team other than the local favorite. I’m a Washington Capitols fan from years back, and being stuck watching only the Columbus Blue Jackets each week hurt. But at least it was hockey, and it was fun to watch.

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An Australian couple in their 40’s have set the world base jumping record. [Via Sakshi]

SMH reports:

After an epic 22-day climb up a near-vertical Himalayan peak, an Australian couple in their 40s took just two minutes to “fly” back to base camp and smash the world record for the highest BASE jump in history…

The leap broke Singleman’s own BASE jumping record of 6258 metres, which he set with Nic Feteris at the Great Trango Tower in Pakistan in 1992.Singleman, a medical doctor, and Swan, a former businesswoman who overcame her fear of heights to take up BASE jumping, had tried to break the 1992 record seven years ago but were foiled by bad weather.

Base jumping is widely referred to as the riskiest sport in the world. You don’t suffer a knee injury or a broken bone like in football at worst. You can die. This possibility does not fill these guys with fear. It pumps up the adrenaline for all the more excitement.

How fast did these guys fall? Statistically, it was 6604-metres in two minutes. You do the math! Don’t want to? Look at it from another angle then. It was faster than the Indian sensex fall.

The 2006 Stanley Cup playoffs reach it’s final stages. Oilers take on Hurricanes.

Ice hockey is fast paced and very exciting. Then there is always the possibility of some awesome fights.

I hope I can catch at least a few games of the series. Oilers vs Hurricane - where else would you get such names for teams!

The Laureus Sports Awards, commonly acknowledged as the sports oscars have been announced. Federer wins the award for a second consecutive time. Croatian skier Janica Kostelic is the women’s winner after a fourth Winter Olympic gold. Tennis dominates the awards list as Hingis takes the comeback of the year while Nadal takes the newcomer of the year.

For Federer to challenge for the title next year, I suspect he has to stride over some one whom he has never beaten on clay - and he says that he is ready.

The murder of Corinne Rey-Bellet comes as a deep shock to the Swiss sporting fraternity, the skiing community and sports world at large. Her brother Alain has also been shot dead while her mother is seriously injured. Swiss police are hunting for Rey-Bellet’s husband, with whom relations appear to have been strained.

Swiss Info reports:

Rey-Bellet was considered one of the world’s best skiers when she retired three years ago. She hung up her skis in 2003 due to injury but not before winning silver in the women’s downhill at the world championships in St Moritz – the high point of her decade-long career.

In all she won five World Cup titles, memorably winning both the downhill and the super-G on the same day in St Anton, Austria, in 1999. What was all the more remarkable about her historic double was that she hadn’t made the podium since finishing third in the giant slalom at Crans Montana in 1992.

A sad loss at a very young age. I hope the perpetrator(s) of the crime is/are found and punished though life lost can never be replaced.

This year’s Stanley Cup play offs would be the first in two years after last year’s lock out. This means that fans are very excited and cannot wait. Chris Young at Toronto Star’s JABS caught up with some prolific bloggers and discussed the pertinent issues related to NHL and of course, the play offs at hand. Check out part 1 and part 2. Also, check out Off Wing Opinion size things up with the regular season ending here.

Update: Off Wing Opinion rounds up the blogs supporting each team in the play offs. A terrific compilation!

Bulgarian Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski’s years of hardwork have finally reaped fruit. The pair won the ice dancing Gold in the World Figure Skating Championships. The couple have been a team since 1996. Denkova had a word to say about the judging in the Torino Games as well.

Reports CNN:

We skated well in the Olympics and we are pleased this time the decision of the judges they looked differently on us and our programs. We didn’t change any thing from the Olympics.

I am glad the pair have a quality reward for years of effort.