Sochi 2014 Resources from the Regional Coordinator for 2012 Welcome to 2014 with the Winter Olympics just around the corner. Vancouver 2010 was especially exciting with Team GB bringing home a gold medal (something we don’t always achieve at the Winter Games). Can you remember who won that gold and in what discipline? This ‘update’ is intended primarily as a Sochi 2014 resource with assembly and lesson ideas linked to past GB successes and personalities, each of the sports on offer, international stars and a little about the host venue and nation. 1. GB Winter Olympics history It’s not outrageous to say that our performances at Winter Olympics since 1924 have not set the world on fire. We notched 4 medals at Chamonix in 1924 for men’s curling (gold), 4 man bobsleigh (silver), women’s figure skating and men’s ice hockey (bronzes). Pardon the pun but it’s all been downhill ever since (we have never troubled the judges at any form of skiing, or ski jumping – oh, the embarrassment of Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards). We have been better on ice than snow with medals for figure skating or ice dancing from 1936, 1976, 1980, 1984 and 1994. Our bobsleigh teams slid to medals in 1924, 1964 (gold through Tony Nash and Robin Dixon) and 1998. Housework on ice, curling, brought us gold in 1924 and 2002 – who can forget the drama of Rhona Martin’s team frantically brushing their way to the top. Speed skater Nicky Gooch raced to a bronze in 1994 but make no bones about it, it’s the scary sport of skeleton bob that has brought medals most recently, all for our women: bronze in Salt Lake City 2002 for Alex Coomber, silver in Torino in 2006 for Shelley Rudman (left) and that gold in Vancouver 2010 – you must know by whom by now. Our skaters and ice dancers are perhaps our best known Winter Olympics stars. John Curry and Robin Cousins won gold in 1976 (Innsbruck) and 1980 (Lake Placid). 2014 is the 30th anniversary of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean’s unforgettable ‘Bolero’ ice dance. 10 years later they collected bronze in Lillehammer. One of the greatest skating stories though concerns 1936 silver medal winner, Cecilia Colledge. Competing in Hitler’s Germany at Garmich – Partenkirchen must have been a strange experience but four years earlier she had made her Olympic debut at Lake Placid, USA, aged just 11. She had a long life and her obituary makes interesting reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/sports/othersports/24colledge.html Ideas on GB Winter Olympic history for use in schools: • Using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain_at_the_Olympics research GB’s Winter Olympics history. Choose one of the Games and write a newspaper article about it from a GB point of view. • We have sent teams to every Winter Games but 7 times they have returned empty handed. Imagine you are opposed to what you see as a waste of money and write a letter to the Sports Minister suggesting that we do not send athletes if they have no chance of a medal. • 1988 was the year Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards represented us at ski-jumping, our one and only ski-jumper at Winter Olympics. Create a PowerPoint for assembly praising him and the Olympics being about taking part not winning. You might also refer to Eric the Eel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Moussambani • It is 30 years since the world fell under the spell of Bolero by Torvill and Dean. A grainy version of their faultless dance can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2zbbN4OL98 Pupils could either re-enact a portion of their performance (dance not ice dance) or choreograph a new, up to date dance to the music for a group of classmates to perform in assembly. • Use Cecilia Colledge’s Olympic story as the stimulus for either a piece of artwork or creative writing. For instance, writing as Cecilia you could use your imagination to describe what it was like to go to an Olympic Games aged just 11: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Colledge 2. GB hopes for Sochi 2014 There are grounds for hope that GB’s Winter Olympics 2014 could exceed the 4 medal haul of 1924. Shelley Rudman is there again in the skeleton with a medal chance and, although our 2010 gold medallist has retired there is a lady in waiting in Lizzy Yarnold. After 5 races in the World Cup series she is in the lead and has three wins to her credit. She has her own website: http://lizzyyarnold.com/ Our bobsleigh teams are not confirmed but there have been strong showings from a number of GB sleighs, male and female, 2 and 4 man crews. One to watch is the 4 man sleigh driven by John Jackson who has recovered from a ruptured Achilles tendon to stake his claim for selection. On the short track speed skating front, GB looks to have its strongest team ever with a medal chance for Elise Christie in particular. The Scot, who trains in Nottingham, won several World Cup races last year. GB might at last win a skiing medal but probably not for the more traditional alpine disciplines. Freestyle skiing, particularly slope-style, could produce medals for James Woods and Katie Summerhayes. The Ski Half-pipe also looks promising with Rowan Cheshire having an outside chance. On the ice the GB women’s curling rink, made up of Scotswomen led by Eve Muirhead (above), looks like a medal contender. The men’s rink is also quite well- tipped for a medal. Ideas on GB Sochi hopes for use in schools: • The skeleton bob is effectively going down an icy slope on a glorified tea tray at speeds of up to 140 kph! Using the word SKELETON as the spine of an acrostic - write a poem imagining yourself on a run. • I have jokingly described curling as ‘housework on ice’ – script a debate between someone who think it is not really a sport – and someone who thinks it’s a great Olympic sport of skill, nerve and tactics. Act it out in assembly. • Ski and board sports have become a lot more trendy and extreme in recent years. Explain which you prefer and why. Traditional events include downhill, slalom and giant slalom with newer events including ski and snowboard cross, freestyle, slope-style and half-pipe • Choose one of GB’s competitors and produce a PowerPoint presentation for assembly about them and their prospects at Sochi 2014 3. Sochi 2014 Sochi is Russia’s first Winter Olympics and the first Games held in Russia since the Summer Games of Moscow 1980 which saw the USA, amongst others, stay away in protest at the actions of what was then the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). This Games has attracted criticism too for several reasons including the amount of money that President Putin is spending. Some say that Sochi 2014 is a ‘vanity project’. Task 1: Find out where Sochi is on a world map. It is not one of Russia’s snowier regions so why do you think it was chosen? The Torch: Below you can see the 1980 Moscow Torch and the 2014 Sochi Torch Task 2: which do you like best and why? Design your own Sochi 2014 Torch, explaining why you have designed it that way. http://talisman.so chi2014.com/#/m ascot/Leopard/ The Torch Relay has had to cover a huge country with very different types of people. The Sochi Torch even went up into space and was taken on a space-walk. Task3: Research the 2014 Torch Relay and describe some of the biggest physical challenges that the organisers must have faced. The Sochi Games has three animal mascots. Which do you like best? If you click on the link below you can watch a film about Snow Leopard with English subtitles – it is quite a dramatic story, very Russian http://talisman.sochi2014.com/en/#/en/mascot/Leopard/ Task 4: Create a storyboard for an adventure featuring all three mascots .and act it out in assembly Good luck with the tasks and I hope you enjoy Sochi 2014 – look out for resources for the Winter Paralympics, coming soon. Gaynor Nash [email protected] .