Quote of the Week- Brian Orser

Today, we continue to quote famous Canadians we quip men's figure skater Brian Orser, who turns 50 on Dec. 18. Orser won silver medals at both the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo (which was in Yugoslavia at the time, now it's the capital of Bosnia) and the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, in front of Orser's home fans.

Orser lost his quest for gold to American ice skater Brian Boitano, in what became known as "The Battle of the Brians."

Today, Orser is known for coaching young figure skaters. Among his proteges is Yuna Kim (or Kim yu-Na), 21, a South Korean women's figure skater who won gold at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

Here is Orser's quote:

"It's not who does the most tricks, but the total package."

SIDEBAR: Tonight, my alma mater Radford University faces the University of Kentucky, a team ranked second in the nation, in NCAA men's basketball. The game will be in Lexington, Ky. I wish the Highlanders well as they face the Wildcats. Assuredly, if the team wins I may have a chance of a date with Vendela.

SIDEBAR 2: As of late, I have become very interested in European soccer, especially regarding English teams. Today, in UEFA action, Arsenal beat German team Dortmund 2-0 on two goals from their star Robin Van Persie.

But, Chelsea did not fare well against another German team Bayer Leverkusen by a 2-1 margin. Chelsea star and Ivory Coast national Didier Drogba scored the first goal of the away match in the 48th minute of play. However, Eren Derdiyok, a Swiss national of Kurdish descent who also has Turkish citizenship, scored the equalizer for the home squad in the 73rd minute. And, then German national team star Manuel Friedrich scored the game winner for Bayer in extra time. Thus, Chelsea fell 2-1.

In other games, Bracelona beat AC Milan 3-2, and the Czech team Viktoria Pizen scored a 1-0 victory over BATE Borisev, a team from Belarus.

Olympic Athlete Profile (25 of 25)-Kwame Nkrumah-Achepong/skier/Ghana

First of all, we thought this day would never come! A part of me wants to apologize to Scandanavian athletes, since we only featured one in our series, but instead I will simply mention that the Finnish women's cross-country skiing team featuring Pirjo Muranen won bronze during the Olympics on Thursday.

Unlike Finland, the west African nation of Ghana does not see snow, which makes Kwame's story all the more unique. The skier, 35, nicknmaed The Snow Leopard, told the BBC last year that for an African athlete in Vancouver simply proving you belong on the slopes in the most important thing:

"My hope is to ski very well and prove to people that I deserve to be on the hill with other top world athletes."

Kwame, who ironically shares his name with a Kenyan politician, first learned to ski on artificial slopes in the United Kingdom where he has spent much of his adult life. He told the BBC that the sport fits his thrill-seeking personality:

"It's an extreme sport and I've always liked challenges and it was more difficult than the traditional sports I was used to," Kwame said. "I just wanted to see if I could cut the real thing."

Kwame hooked up with Denis Grigorev, a coach from Uzbekistan who he met during a trial competition in Iran.

"My coach told me to avoid any embarrasment," Kwame said. "I should just go straight down, so that's what I did just go straight down."

The skier from Ghana initially tried to compete at the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy, but his flight to an Olympic trial was postponed at the Amsterdam airport due to ice on the wings.

Kwame told "The Canadian Press" that he aims to have a blast in Vancouver:

"I just into skiing for fun," Kwame said. "It's just turned into something else now."

As one might expect, Kwame has become a sensation in Vancouver with tourists buying him lunch. Canadian fiddler Ashley Maclsaac actually wrote a charity song entitled "Dreams" to help with the skier's Olympic expenses.

MSNBC reported that Kwame is not interested in becoming a mere novelty athlete, like ski jumper Eddie the Eagle who became a sensation at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary:

"For me, sports are competition," Kwame said. "It's not about all the funny things can do to create loads of money, I think the teams around me understands we are not a joke."

After the Olympics, Kwame wants to open a grass ski slope in Ghana so his countrymen can learn to ski like him.

Kwame is also popular with local stores as Chackas, a gift shop in downtown Vancouver, has dedicated its entire store-front window to "The Snow Leopard."

He is set to ski for the first time at the games this afternoon.

Olympic Athlete Profile (24 of 25)- Muhammad Abbas/skier/Pakistan

We are heading down the proverbial slopes as we get ready to conclude this lengthy series on Olympic athletes competing at the Winter Games in Vancouver.

Today, we profile Muhammad Abbas, 24, an employee of the Pakistani Air Force who is also the first Pakistiani athelete to compete in alpine skiing for his country.

Abbas finished 79th in the competition earlier in the week. The giant slalom event featured 103 skiiers from 60 countries. Abbas finished higher than some other low-ranked skiers, including Dow Travers from The Cayman Islands and Jamyang Namgiel from Pakistan's traditional rival India.

According to the English-language Pakistani news web site dawn.com, Abbas said he was thrilled to be on the same as American skiing sensation Bode Miller and Norwegian great Aksel Lund Svindal (whom we profiled earlier).

Abbas fist skied on the hills of his Himalayan mountain village in wooden skis which his father made for him.

One of the challenges for Pakistani skiers is finding the time and place to train as Abbas' coach Zahid Farooq told dawn.com:

"In the last two years, we have trained only eight weeks," Farooq said. "We had two weeks in Austria in '08, and six weeks in '09."

Farooq also told Reuters that there is only one small slope, which is 500 meters long, in Pakistan.

The Pakistani coach told dawn.com that in addition to arranging training time for Abbas, he also helps him by cooking, cleaning and interpreting for him.

Farroq added that he hopes to have a female skier on the Pakistani Winter Olympics at the 2014 games in Soshi, Russia.

Olympic Athlete Profile (23 of 25)- Wang Meng/women's short-track speed skating/China

Whew! We had tremendous problems trying to find an image that worked for this one, but I think after literally going through 15 different images we finally found one.

And, hopefully since Wang Meng, 24, is a short-track speed skater from China, a country with over a billion folks, I will be rewarded with more web hits than normal for a Friday afternoon!

Wang (in Chinese, one is refered to by first names) is considered to be the best women's short-track speed skater in the world. Before today's competition, she had earned 14 total medals in her career.

The Chinese skater has already won individual gold in the 500-meter race at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, and she is expected to win more medals today as she competes in two separate events.

Additionally, Wang won a team gold in the 3,000-meter relay when a South Korean skater crashed into one of Wang's teammates causing her team, which would have won gold otherwise, to be disqualified.

Wang got into short-track speed skating at age nine.

Her hero is English soccer star David Beckham.

She told the AP through an interpreter that she was elated and relieved to win gold in the 500-meter race:

"On the final two laps, I still felt my legs shaking," Wang said. "I guess when you're so close to what you've always wanted, it's natural to be shaken."

Olympic Athlete Profile (22 of 25) Robel Teklemariam/cross country skiing/Ethiopia

Robel Teklemariam, 35, seen here waving the Ethiopian flag in the stands during the Vancouver Olympics' opening ceremonies, finished 93rd out of 95 cross country skiers in the 15-km freestyle competition on Feb. 15, but his story is quite a unique one given that he represents a country in sub-Sahara Africa.

Robel (we'll use his first name to make life easier) has spent a considerable amount of time in America as he is an alumnus of The University of New Hampshire.

"The Richmond Times-Dispatch" reported that his mother Yeshaneg Demisse, who was in attendance to watch her son at the games, owns a restaurant called The Nile which serves Ethiopian food near the Virginia Commonwealth University campus in Richmond, Va.

Robel competed in his second Olympics after making his debut in Torino.

Dario Cologna of Switzerland won the gold in the 15km free-style with Italian Pietro Piller Cottrer getting silver and Czech skier Lukas Bauer taking bronze.

Robel told "The RTD" that he hoped to expose more Ethiopians to skiing, and that the diaspora community in British Columbia was very welcoming of him.

On Robel's wikipedia page, he is quoting as saying that his mission is a minimalist one:

"I'm a realist," Robel said. "My goals are for further down the road. I want this Olympics to open my eyes and hopefully the eyes of other Ethiopians."

Robel has also a kept a blog of his expeirences as part of the 5 Dreams project, which includes blogs from for other Olympic athletes. One of the other four is Turkish figure skater Tugba Karademir, whom we features in our second entry in this series. Karademir's short program was actually televised in prime time on NBC even though she was not a medal contender.

The story of how Robel flew in from the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa (ninth grade geography teachers may want to make this a bonus question on their next test!) to Dubai to Toronto to Vancouver is one that any road-weary passenger can relate to.

Robel said that an expected 20-minute stopover in Dubai became a two-hour nightmare because of the extensive time it took him to go through customs. Then, he boarded what would be an exhausting 14-hour flight to Toronto. After that, he had to get on a domestic Canadian flight to Vancouver which took yet another four hours.

But, he made it in time for the opening ceremonies, which were in his own words an unbelievable experience.

Olympic Athletes Profile- (21 of 25) Michael Schmid/men's skicross/Switzerland

We are getting closer to the proverbial finish line with our 21st profile (this was a crazy idea, actually!), and since we looked at Jamaican skicrosser Errol Kerr in Entry 3 of the series, we thought we'd look out at the man who ended up winning the competition (though Kerr performed quite well, advancing to the finals of the event).

Schmid, who turns 26 on March 18, won the gold medal at the Vancouver games over fellow skicrossers Andreas Matt of Austria (silver) and Audurn Groenvold of Norway (bronze) on Monday. These Olympics marked the debut of skicross, which had previously been known mainly to Winter X-Games spectators (the event is held annually in Aspen, Colo.).

The Swiss skicrosser debuted in 2004, and he finished fifth the following year at the sport's world championships in Ruka, Finland.

Schmid consistently ranked in the top ten, and he won his first World Cup race in 2009 in Austria.

During the Olympic competition, Canadian Chris Del Bosco, a Winter X-Games gold medalist, fell on his next to last jump which allowed his competitors to move up in the rankings.

According to the AP, Schmid handled a series of jumps and banked turns which allowed him to win the gold medal.

"It was not easy," Schmid said. "You must have a perfect day when you go to the Olympic competition."

Olympic Athlete Profiles (20 of 25)- Andre Lange/men's bobsledding/Germany

I was initially hoping for a photo of Andre Lange, 36, performing in his sport, but this image was too good to pass up!

Lange won his fourth gold medal (over a span of several Olympics) at the Vancouver games in the two-man bobsled competition. With his achievement, Lange became the first man to win three consecutive gold medals in the two-man competition.

The German bobsledder is in his third cosnecutive Olympics, and at the Turin games, he won the four-man competition with teammates Kevin Kuske, Rene Hopper and Martin Putze.

In total, Lange has won 14 medals, eight of them gold, in his international career.

He may add to his total if the German team wins the four-man bobsled competition before the end of the Vancouver games. They were first after a preliminary run in which the American team, helmed by Steve Holcomb was in second place.

Canada's bobsled driver Lyndon Rush told NBC that Lange is essentially the Michael Jordan of the sport:

"Andre is the great one," Rush said. "The say the cream rises to the top, Andre Lange is the cream."

Lange told NBC that he was amazed by his good luck streak in Olympic competition:

"When I started bobsledding 17 years ago, I would have never thought of such a victory," Lange said.

Olympic Athletes Profile (19 of 25)- Martina Sablikova/women's speed skating/Czech Rep.

We have not posted as many entries as I would like for both Eastern European and Scandanavian countries, but today we will try to mend those proverbial fences by profiling Czech speed skater Martina Sablikova, 23, who has already won a gold medal in Vancouver.

Her brother Milan Sablikova is also competing at the Winter Olympics.

Martina won gold in the 3,000 meters competition on Feb. 14 by beating out German Stephanie Beckert (silver) and Canadian Kristina Graves (bronze). The AP said the Czech speed skater dominated the event with her trademark turns and wide sweeps through the corners.

In Turin, Martina finished fourth behind Canadian Clara Hughes (gold), German Claudia Pechstein (silver) and Canadian Cindy Klassen (bronze). Martina missed a bronze medal in Italy by a mere second.

Hughes and Klassen competed against Martina again in Vancouver. But, both faltered as Hughes finishes fifth and Klassen finished 14th.

Martina was named Sports Person of the Year in the Czech Republic in 2007 and in
2009.

Olympics Athletes Profile (18 of 25)- Meghan Agosta/women's hockey/Canada

Tommorow night, Team Canada will face Team USA in the gold medal game for women's hockey in Vancouver. The Americans will want revenge since the Canadian women's team won the gold medal over Team USA during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Meghan Agosta, 23, has been the main star of the Canadian team as she has scored nine goals in the competition so far. So far during the games, Agosta, an Ontario native has scored two hat tricks: one against Slovakia and the other against Sweden.

During the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, Agosta scored a hat trick on her 19th birthday against Russia.

Agosta started playing hockey at the age of six. In 2004, she moved to Calgary to train for the Canadian national team.

She has also played college hockey for Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., where she became the first freshman nominated for player of the year.

Agosta lead the Lakers to an NCAA Division 1 title game against Wisconsin in 2009, but they fell to the Badgers by a 5-0 margin.

Expectations are high for both men's and women's Canadian hockey teams since the games are in Vancouver. Both Team Canada and Team USA have had little difficulty winning in women's hockey, so tomorrow night's game will be the first true test for both teams.

And, as the old Abba song goes: "The Winner Takes it All." (hmmm.....sorry for that!)

Olympic Athlete Profile (17 of 25)- Ashley Caldwell/women's aerial skiing/USA

Take Two! Boy, we've had our struggles posting entries in this series (I'll be so glad when the Olympics end on Sunday). My sister is actually at the Vancouver games as a spectator. We are eagerly awaiting her reports.

Since we profiled the oldest member of the American Olympic delegation (see entry 11), we thought we'd mention Ashley Caldwell, an elite gymnast turned aerialist skier who is merely 16 years old. (And, we hope she is the one pictured here!).

Initially, Caldwell was only focused on the 2014 Olympics in Russia, but her surprisingly strong tenth place finish at the last World Cup made her qualify for the current Olympic team.

On Saturday, Caldwell finished 12th in the first round of women's freestyle aerials and was able to capture the last spot to qualify for the final medal round.

Caldwell, who is from Hamilton, Va, near Washington, DC, told Tracee Hamilton of "The Washington Post" that the Olympic experience has tested her emotionally.

"It's day by day and I'm freaking out," Caldwell said. "My coach tells me to chill out, but I'm like 'Oh my God I'm at the Olympics.'" She added that she normally gets a bit nervous, but the Olympic experience has added significant pressure on her.

On her second run during qualifying, Caldwell executed a back sommersault with a full twist, then a double twist before landing cleanly.

Caldwell competed for Apex Gymnastics in northern Virginia before turning her attention to aerial skiing. She said she simply saw the sport on tv, and thought it would fun to try it out. Caldwell started competing in 2008.

Her teammate Emily Cook said she was impressed by Caldwell's ability to mature in the difficult sport:

"She's grown up extremely quickly," Cook said. "It's pretty unprecedented."

Olympic Athlete Profile- Aksel Lund Svindal/men's slalom/Norway

For those of us watching the Olympics in Vancouver, Norwegian skier Aksel Lund Svindal might be known as the man who beat Bode Miller, but he has a very unique personal story and he is one of his sport's greatest champions.

Lund, 27, lives in Kjeller, Norway. He beat out Miller (silver) and American skier Andrew Weibrecht (bronze) to win gold at the Super G with a time of 1:30.34.

Svindal has won five World Championships and 13 World Cup races. Additionally, he won four medals at the 2002 World Junior Championships.

The Norwegian skier crashed badly during a downhill race at the Beaver Creek ski resort in Avon, Colo., in 2007.

Despite many broken bones and numerous surgeries, Svindal returned to the sport in October of 2008, and ironically won one of his first comeback victories at Beaver Creek.

In Vancouver, Svindal also won a silver medal in downhill skiing, finishing behind Swiss skier Didier Defago, but beating out Miller by 0.02 of a second.

Svindal won his first Olympic gold medal while competing at the Vancouver Olympics.

On his own personal blog, which is in English, Svindal said that it 'has been a great Olympics so far, and it can only get better.'

Olympic Athlete Profiles (15 of 25) Gregor Schlierenzauer/men's ski jumping/Austria

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!

Olympic Athlete Profile- (14 of 25). Sandrine Aubert/women's slalom/France

There are some very attractive female athletes at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, including American luger Erin Hamlin and Bulgarian snowboarder Alexandra Jekova, whom we've both refered to before.

But, it is perhaps French slalom skier Sandrine Aubert, who posts pictures of herself in a bikini on her web site (sandrineaubert.com) who is the most gorgeous of them all.

Oddly enough even though Aubert, 27, won a major slalom event in Zagreb, Croatia, beating out American Lindsay Vonn, this January, there is very little about her on the web.

Aubert keeps a blog, but it is in French. Even though I speak a foreign language (Turkish), I must admit my French was barely good enough to pass a community college course in Virginia.

But, according to Wikipedia, Aubert ranks third in the world.

She won her first World Cup race in Germany on March 7, 2009, and she also won a major competition in Sweden.

Aubert seems to be one female athlete who could one day become a runway model in Paris. She really is that gorgeous!

Interestingly enough, she will be competiting (or has already competed) against Iranian skier Marjan Kalhor whom we profiled earlier.

Olympic Athlete Profile (13 of 25)- Sven Kramer/men's speed skating/Netherlands

Has anyone ever felt like calling a reporter stupid? (Actually, I used to be one, but I get that feeling as well sometimes!).

Well, apparently Dutch gold medal-winning speed skater Sven Kramer did just that to an NBC reporter who asked him essentially who he was after he won a gold medal in the 5,000 meters competition on the first official day of the Vancouver Olympics.

Kramer later told a Dutch interviewer that the incident was just ridicilious because he had just won a gold medal and suddenly he was expected to provide a mini-bio of himself on the spot.
(The reporter reportedly was also unaware that Kramer was Dutch!).

Kramer, 23, is the current Dutch, European and world champion in his sport and he is also a world record holder.

He is the son of Dutch speed skater Yep Kramer, who competed for Holland in the
'80s, and against American legend Eric Heiden.

Kramer's personal life was of interest to the Dutch media while he was dating supermodel Doutzen Kroes, but now he is romantically linked to Dutch field hockey player Naomi Van As.

During the competition, Kramer beat out South Korean Lee Seung-Hoon (silver) and Russian Ivan Skrobev (bronze).

Kramer is the most recognized athlete in Holland, where speed skating is considered to be the national sport.

Heiden told "The New York Times" that he was impressed how well the Dutch speed skater handles the pressures given his celebrity status back home.

Olympic Athlete Profile (12 of 25) Kim Yu-Na/women's figure skating/South Korea

The 'Princess Diana' of South Korea, as her Canadian coach Brian Orser calls her, Kim Yu-Na, 19, will be performing soon in Vancouver.

She is the gold medal favorite in women's skating, which could be a jinx since no favorite has won the event since Oksana Baul in 1994.

Kim trains in Toronto with Orser and she was won the last nine of 11 world competitions she's been in.

She began skating at the age of 11 and Kim won her first South Korean title at age 13 in 2003.

Kim has become quite a sensation in South Korea where she appears in commercials for products such as Samsung Electronics.

Orser told "The New York Times" that she is aware of how Koreans are watching how she performs with high anticipation:

"I think she realizes that she has made a difference in that country," Orser said. "She's changed the morale there during this global recession."

Kim told the media that she felt nervous about the Olympics, but that she was focused on the task at hand.

Her top rival is the Japanese skater Mao Asada, who is a silver medal favorite.

Kim will skate her long program to music from George Gershwin, but her short program, which features theme music from James Bond movies seems to get her more attention.

The South Korean skater added that there is more to life than what happens in Vancouver:

"Even if I don't win the gold medal, I would (pause) I would not be disappointed too much."

Winter Athlete Profiles (11 of 25)- Tracy Sachtjen/Women's Curling/USA

The first attempt to post this entry failed yesterday, but we are going through with it nonetheless.

Alas, the United States' women's curling team had their own frustrations as they lost to Team Canada by a 9-2 margin yesterday, but that does not take away from the human interest involving American curler Tracy Sachtjen, who just turned 41 on Saturday.

Sachtjen, pictured here (it should be pointed the image of the curling team is that of Great Britian's) is the oldest member of the American Olympic delegation. The oldest male athlete is also a curler as John Benton is 40. The youngest American athlete is female aerialist skier Ashley Caldwell, a former elite gymnast, who is just 16.

The American women's curler lives in Lodi, Wisc., where she works as a sports and events coordinator at a local YMCA.

She started curling in 1982, and made her junior debut five years later.

Sachtjen's team placed sixth at an international competition in Switzerland at the 1997 curling championships. During her career, she has won one gold medal and one silver medal from competiting internationally.

On her team's web site, Sachtjen said that 2009 was an inspiritanional year for her and her curling teammates.

In her spare time, the curler enjoys playing golf and swimming.

Sachtjen is married with one daughter Sierra (16) and one son Desmon (9).

Other international curlers have unique careers away from the ice. Canadian Colleen Jones, 46, is a weather woman for Canadian television. Danish curler Angelina Jensen sells insurance.

SIDEBAR: American moguls skier Shannon Bahrke founded the Silver Bean Coffee Company with her fiance Matt Happe in Salt Lake City, Utah. Interestingly enough, though she is a skier, Bahrke professes to hating the cold!

SIDEBAR TWO: We almost profiled Sidney Crosby, the Canadian superstar hockey player for the Pittsburgh Penguins, as an American! But, in spite, Team USA pulled a shocking upset last night by defeating Canada 5-3.

Winter Athlete Profiles (10 of 25)- Marjan Kalhor/slalom skiing/Iran

Due to a technical glitch, we are going to profile Iranian slalom skier Marjan Kahlor, 21, the first woman to represt Iran at a Winter Olympics, a bit earlier than anticipated.

Kahlor carried the Iranian flag for a delegation of five athletes. Some in Iran have criticized Kahlor for competiting as an athlete as a woman because of the country's strict Isamic cultural values, but Kalhor told "USA Today" that coming to the Olympics was very important not just for her, but for the women of Iran:

"I am very glad to be here, not just for myself, but it can be a very good incentive for women in Iran."

Kahlor is not exactly Lindsay Vonn when it comes to winning major international competitions though she has won medals at skiing events in Turkey and Lebanon.

She told "USA Today" that putting in her best effort was vital:

"I can't think think about a gold, silver or bronze," she said. "But I have some competitiors that were close to each other," Kahlor said. "I hope I can perform better than them."

According to the blog site Muslim Women in Sports, Kahlor will wear the traditional Islamic headscraf in the Olympic Village, but she will dress like everyone else on the slopes.

Winter Athlete Profile (9 of 25) Philip Boit/Cross Country Skier/Kenya

I first heard about Philip Boit on the NPR news program "The World" a few weeks ago when he wasn't entirely sure if he would be able to compete as a cross-country skier at the olympics.

The good news is that Boit, 38, will be competing in his fourth consecutive Olympics dating back to the 1998 games in Nagano, Japan.

Along with fellow Kenya distance runner Henry Bitok, Boit was part of a Nike program to have Kenyan runners train in Finland to become cross country skiers.

Boit became the first Winter Olympic athlete to ever compete for Kenya. During his first Olympics, Boit finished 92nd but Norwegian cross country skier Bjorn Daehle who won gold in the event delayed the award ceremony so that Boit could finish his run. For that noble gesture, Boit named on his sons Daehle Boit.

The Kenyan athlete finished 64th at the '02 Salt Lake City Olympics and 92nd at the last winter games in Turin, Italy.

According to the web site goafrica.com, one of the challenges for African winter athletes is actually having the funds to travel to the Olympic host cities.

Winter Athlete Profile (8 of 25)- Martins Dukurs of Latvia

Martins Dukurs, 25, of the former Soviet republic of Latvia, a small country in the Baltic region, is winning the men's skeleton competition so far.

Latvia's capital city of Riga is perhaps the population size of Omaha, Neb. (ok that would need verification!), and he is among Latvia's top atheletes at the games. Both the men's and women's skeleton races were aired circa 2 a.m. last night on NBC, and I did actually watch the coverage!

According to the AP, Dukurs has a chance to add to an almost perfect season with a gold medal in Vancouver. The final runs are scheduled for today (Friday- perhaps, they have already happened, but we can't confirm or deny that).

Dukurs' sled was designed by his father. His older brother Tomass Dukurs, who finised 21st at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City is also competing for Latvia in Canada.

The younger Dukurs is .26 seconds ahead of second place finisher Jon Montgomery of Canada, while Russian Alexander Tretyakov is in third just .84 seconds behind the Latvian skeleton racer.

American Zach Lund, who is in 8th place in the skeleton competition, told the AP that Lukurs will be hard to top:

"It's like when I was No. 1 in the world," Lund said. "Once you know you can win, your confidence is through the roof."

But, Dukurs told the same media outlet that he is being cautios:

"It's only a three-tenths of a second lead," Dukurs said. "I'm on Montgomery's track. In skeleton, five-tenths is nothing. In skeleton, anything can happen."

Olympic Athlete Profile (7 of 25)- Daisuke Takahashi/Men's Figure Skating/Japan

I was initially going to post an entry on American men's figure skater Johnny Weir, who has his own show on The Sundance Channel, but we decided to go with one of his rivals Daisuke Takahashi of Japan since he is more likely than Weir to medal tonight based on the short program which was performed on Tuesday.

Along with current leader Evgeni Plushenko of Russia and Evan Lysacek of the United States who is in a VERY close second, Takahashi, who is in a VERY close third, gave an amazing performance which included a triple-axel and a triple lutz-triple toe-loop.

Takahashi, 23, told various media outlets that it was his best performance of the season. He added that he was pleased to see many fans supporting him:

"The audience was really good, there were lots of Japanese fans and Japanese flags and that really helped," Takahashi said. "I am glad because I haven't scored so high in a long while."

Takahashi, a four-time Japanese national champion who also competed during the 2006 Turin Olympics, began skating when he was eight years old. Initially, he was going to try ice hockey but he didn't like the sport's protective gear.

As for Weir, his Sundance Channel show airs at 10:30 on Mondays. He is assuredly not the only Olympic athlete we will have to snub due to time and space constraints, and we apologize for that!