Have You Ever Wondered.....

..how Olympians in obscure sports get their training? Ive have always admired the speed skaters and figured if there was ever a sport I might have been good at, that could have been it. But not once in my whole life have I ever seen a speed skating rink... or a bobsled track or cross country skiers packing rifles.

How do the youth of our country get the opportunity to try their hands at these sports. When they choose the best in the country to represent us, how do they know they have the best if 99 percent of us never even got to try out?

The other day I attended the grand opening of the Richmond speed skating oval built for the upcoming Winter Olympics here in Vancouver. Its a beautiful building with a stunning roof crafted from reclaimed pine beetle destroyed trees.

A vast expanse of ice




A closeup of the roof




I stood in awe looking at the vast expanse of ice, picturing myself racing around it. Excited at the chance to finally have a go at speed skating, I went to all the information booths they had set up to see if I could finally find out how I could get some training in this particular sport.

Not one person had the answer. They are planning to allow public skating at the oval until the Olympics start but all the skating lessons are for traditional ice skating and the skate rentals are for regular ice skates not the longer blades they use for speed. Im am soooo dissapointed.

After the Olympics are over they are going to change the interior of the oval to accommadate a more traditional style rink with the rest of the space being used for basketball courts or other sports. I wish they would offer the general public a chance to try their hand at speed skating, who knows the next gold medalist could live right around the corner.