Olympic Competitors - Another Reason to Love McMurdo!

Last night, I attended another installment of the wonderful new talk series here in McMurdo called "Secret Lives".  It features two people each week telling stories of their off-ice lives.  Yesterday's was particularly exciting; it starred our Nurse Practitioner, who is an Olympic level figure skating judge, and the head of our Housing department, who competed for 12 years as the brakeman for the two-man bobsled team representing TRINIDAD!

Curtis was a star sprinter and was recruited to train in Lake Placid, New York for the Trinidad and Tobago team.  He competed in the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer and in 1998 in Nagano, Japan.  He talked about the mechanics of racing bobsleds (or bobsleigh), the agony of being in a thin piece of fiberglass moving at speeds up to 90 miles per hour with 4 g of gravitational force and the effects of crashing (ripped off skin).  He balanced those stories with tales of luxury and grandeur at the Olympic Games (masseuses, chefs at your beck and call, drivers and interpreters, and designated driving lanes on the roadways just for athletes).  Utterly fascinating!

There is another Olympian on station who also competed in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.  Deborah is here with the military and I've gotten to know her through my IT training classes.  She competed in the biathlon for the US.  

Olympic results are here:

Curtis: http://www.todor66.com/olim/1994w/Bobsleigh_Doubles.html                    
Deborah:  http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/no/deborah-nordyke-1.html
  
Hooray for our tremendous community!