When we first started this epic project of Cecil B. Demille proportions, we went through a list of some potentially interesting Winter Olympics athletes.
I was particularly fascinated by Austrian ski jumper Gregor Schlierenzauer both because he was a gold medal favorite and because his last name is VERY hard to spell, but then again so is the surname of Icelandic women's slalom skier Iris Gudmundsdottir!
The Austrian skier nicknamed Schlieri (it should be pointed out that the ski jumping is that of a Polish ski jumper) just turned 20 on January 7th, but he has already son 32 World Cup Victories which only four other ski jumpers have done.
At Vancouver, Schlieri has won two bronze medals (actually, this number is subject to immediate change as he is ski jumping again today) so far. In the Men's K-120, on Saturday, he finished third behind Simon Ammann of Switzerland and veteran Adam Malysz of Poland.
Schlieri broke Finnish ski jumper Jsanne Ahonen's record of 12 World Cup victories, with his 13th win. The Austrian ski jumper also won gold at the world championships in 2007, and he won both team and individual medals at the 2008 world's.
He is deaf in one year, and began ski jumping at the age of 8.
I was really looking forward to watching ski jumping as it is one of my favorite events. But, as those of you who watch the Olympics realize, one can watch one of their least favorite events (for me, it's ice dancing) yet miss their favorite sports entirely!
When we lived in Poland in 1976 (when I was six years old), I watched ski jumping all the time. But, when I asked my mom if I could try ski jumping, I believe she said no in a very adamant way!
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