Author: Roy Tomizawa

Escaping North Korea – Recent Soldier Defections are Just Tip of the Iceberg

Defector shot crossing DMZ
Video footage of Defector Shot While Crossing border

Only months before the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, two North Korean soldiers crossed the highly secure demilitarized zone (DMZ) that maintains the nervous peace between South and North. That makes for a total of 4 soldier defections in 2017, compared with two over the previous four years.

On December 21, 2017 a North Korean soldier took advantage of a very thick fog to walk across the border.

More dramatically, on November 13, 2017, a soldier raced to the border in a jeep. Just prior to the border, the defector’s jeep got stuck in a grassy area, forcing the soldier to get out and run, just as North Korean soldiers with rifles appear on foot, firing at the 19-year old defector, and into South Korea. Shot four times but falling in South Korea territory, the defector was dragged to safety by South Korean soldiers.

 

Clearly, it is very hard to cross the DMZ from North into South. More importantly, only soldiers have access to the North-South border areas, so the general population has very little chance to cross there.

The majority of defectors from North Korea go north to China or Russia. Since 1953 and the end of the Korean War, it is estimated that anywhere from 100- to 300,000 North Koreans have defected overall. Russia has about 10,000, many who have escaped the logging camps in North Korea. China may have as many as 30- to 50,000 North Koreans blending into Chinese society. The majority of those defectors are women, who marry Chinese men, settling into a quiet life in order to avoid being arrested by authorities and deported back to likely punishment in North Korea.

Thousands of others have made the journey down to the southern part of China where they make their way Laos and Thailand, or through Mongolia, assuming that they can avoid the clutches of Chinese authorities ready to send them back.

North Korean boat washes up in Akita
Eight bodies found as second suspected North Korean boat washes up in Akita Prefecture

Japan has also been a destination since the late 1980s. North Koreans make their journey over 400 miles across the Sea of Japan to Aomori, Fukui or the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa. On November 27, 2017, a wooden boat in poor condition washed up on the shore of Akita, in the northern part of Japan. Eight bodies, thought to be North Korean defectors, were found inside the boat. Only the week before, eight men from North Korea arrived on Japanese soil by boat, alive. In fact, in 2017, 44 boats from North Korea have made it to Japan this year.

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Operation Christmas: How Christmas Trees and Soccer Balls Have Worked to Bring Greater Peace in Colombia

Operation Christmas Message

Over 200,000 people have been killed during an ongoing conflict in Colombia that pits the government, paramilitary groups and crime organizations against left-wing groups as FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia) and ELN (The National Liberation Army). For over fifty years, guerillas hiding deep in the jungle have been playing a deadly cat-and-mouse game, and the government has tried everything to bring them out of the jungles and send them home to their families.

They have even tried an advertising campaign, the likes of which you might see in a mall or on YouTube, to market a company or its products. In this case, the campaign has been powerfully effective.

The goal has been to get FARC and ELN guerrillas to demobilize, and thus weaken the guerrilla bands. The appeal has been to their hearts. And what better way to appeal to the hearts of Colombians is through Christmas and soccer. As explained in this December 11, 2016 60 Minutes report, the Colombian military hired a creative ad executive named Jose Miguel Sokoloff in 2006 to create a campaign that would convince members of FARC to go home.

On December 10, 2010, the military and Sokkoloff launched an advertising campaign called “Operation Christmas,” in which 9 very tall trees were decorated with lights that would only turn on if the motion-detection sensor noticed movement in that area. So if a FARC guerilla walked by one of those designated trees, it would light up like the proverbial Christmas Tree. At the same time, another light would shine on a sign that read:

If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home. Demobilize. At Christmas, everything is possible.

As Sokoloff explained in 60 Minutes, “What we did was try to make coming back home for Christmas an important thing. And we knew that if we put up these Christmas trees with that sign up there, we would touch the hearts of the guerrillas, ‘cause my heart was touched. And they went and they did it.”

The result of that campaign was that over 300 guerillas, about 5% of the total, left the jungle and surrendered.

The following year, the Colombian military staged “Operation Rivers of Light,” another campaign to reach further into the jungle by floating plastic balls that contained messages and gifts to the guerillas. They also lit up with soft purple light, to send another powerful message of peace and beauty into the heart of the jungle. Some 7,000 of those balls resulted in the demobilization of another 180 guerillas.

Another campaign was also launched in 2011, in conjunction with the 2011 FIFA U-20 World Cup, which happened to be hosted by Colombia from July 29 to August 20. As Sokoloff said, football moves this country. Football is our passion.” So during this campaign, soldiers had thousands of soccer balls signed by players and celebrities and fans. Theses balls – all with a sticker saying “Demobilize. Let’s play again” – were thrown from helicopters into the jungle, resulting in another wave of guerillas leaving the jungle.

Sokoloff claims that over eight years of this campaign, 18,000 guerillas have come home, and got FARC to the bargaining table.

Still FARC and ELN fight for survival in the jungles, soldiers and guerillas die. But still negotiations continue as the government and FARC look to find peace.

Perhaps it will be quiet today in Colombia, for it is Christmas, and family calls.

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Robots at Haneda: The Mechanical Seven

If you’re flying in and out of Haneda Airport from January 9, 2018, you may be surprised to see a new team on hand to assist you. The team will be made up of seven robots designed to assist staff and visitors at the busy domestic and international airport, located very near the central part of Tokyo.

Robots will be there to provide information, offer interpretation into four different languages or carry your bags, for example. When you’re at Haneda in January, you’ll see a C-3PO ancestor, the”EMIEW3″ robot, which is less than a meter tall and can provide you with information in English and Japanese.

 

Robots at Haneda 2
The EMIEW3

 

With the number of foreign visitors to Japan climbing rapidly – the total number of visitors to Japan exceeding 24 million this year – combined with a tight labor market, Haneda officials realize that they will need robots to increase productivity and meet the needs of travelers. Additionally, there is a pride associated with showing the world during the Tokyo2020 Olympics that Japan is cutting edge.

As Yutaka Kuratomi, a representative from the Japan Airport Terminal, said in this article, “We want foreign tourists to think that the Japanese people are cool when they come here.”

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The Humanization of the Emperor in Post-War Japan

Life Magazine_Emperor and Empress 3

These are fascinating pictures of Emperor Hirohito and the Empress in the summer of 1964. Taken from the September 11, 1964 issue of Life Magazine, these black and white photos reveal the Emperor to be a somewhat ordinary man, grandfatherly, academic. In fact, the couple looks like they’re having fun looking for mollusks.

The magazine even quotes the Emperor describing the “umi ushi” they found. “This is an easygoing chap, not in the least alarmed at being caught.”

Life Magazine_Emperor and Empress 1

Americans who saw this set of pictures in Life Magazine were probably surprised to see a totally different Emperor Hirohito. Perhaps their memory of him was a leader who sent suicide dive bombers to attack Pearl Harbor, or drove soldiers to kill themselves in the name of the Emperor rather than be captured by Allied forces. But to see the Emperor at all in the 1960s was due to efforts by the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers (SCAP), the entity that governed Japan in the post-war years, as well as members of the Japanese government.

After World War II, in the immediate aftermath of Japan’s defeat at the hands of overwhelming American military firepower, one would think there would be too much concern over what to eat, where to sleep, and how they will cope the next day for people to care about the Emperor, and whether the imperial family as an institution should be maintained.

And yet, support for continuing the imperial throne was strong, a survey in October, 1945 revealing “widespread enthusiasm or deep awe and veneration comparable to that of the war years,” according to John Dower in his seminal book, Embracing Defeat. While forceful calls for the dethronement of Emperor Hirohito and elimination of the imperial system in Japan were common in America and other allied nations, the head of SCAP, General Douglas MacArthur, agreed that it was important to keep the emperor in place.

Life Magazine_Emperor and Empress 2

Dower quoted a memo from Brigadier General Bonner Fellers to MacArthur about the reasons why the Emperor should remain as a symbol of Japan, emphasizing the fact that the Emperor, by going on the radio and announcing Japan’s defeat and need to lay down arms, “hundreds of thousands of American casualties were avoided and the war terminated far ahead of schedule.” in the case of trying the Emperor for war crimes, Fellers argued that “the governmental structure would collapse and a general uprising would be inevitable.”

SCAP was therefore insistent that Hirohito remain as Emperor, and not be tried for war crimes. In place of a deity as the head of Japan, SCAP sought to “humanize” the Emperor. A big part of those efforts were sending the Emperor on tours across the nation to meet the people in 1946. SCAP made sure pictures were taken and film was shot to document the Emperor walking amidst his people, a scenario unthinkable during and before the war years.

Life Magazine_Then Crown Prince Akihito Crown Princess Michiko and Current Crown Prince
Then Crown Prince Akihito Crown Princess Michiko and Current Crown Prince
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Akwasi Frimpong: So Close to Becoming the First Ghanaian in the Winter Olympics

Akwasi Frimpong

He slept on the ground of his crowded home as a child, his grandmother working hard to get food on the table for nine grandchildren. Akwasi Frimpong grew up in a village called Kumasi in the Republic of Ghana, and while he aspired to a better life, he probably had no thought of becoming an Olympian in the speed sliding sport of skeleton.

Skeleton Olympic champions have emerged from only 8 countries in the world, including the US, Great Britain, Canada, Russia and Switzerland. Certainly, running full speed into an icy track of twists and turns, head first on a tiny sled, is not the first thing 99.99999% of the world’s population would try to do, let alone think, particularly in a country where the coldest it gets is about19 degrees Celsius.

And yet Frimpong defied the considerable odds, and has put himself in a position to become Ghana’s first ever Winter Olympian representing his country at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics in the skeleton competition. To become an Olympian, he has to qualify at the skeleton world cup in mid-January of 2018 by getting into the Top 60 in the world. If he does, he’s going to South Korea.

Perhaps Frimpong’s first big break was leaving Ghana at the age of 8, and move to the Netherlands where his mother had emigrated to. In a more developed economy with more opportunities, Frimpong was shaped by his coach at his junior high school into a track star.

His second big break was having Sammy Monsels as his junior high school coach, a man who competed as a sprinter at the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics. According to this article on Olympic.org, Monsels created a vision for Frimpong.

“It was Sammy who really instilled the dream of the Olympics in me. Within two months, I went to the Dutch Junior Indoor Championships and missed out on the 60m final by 0.01 seconds. That summer, I missed out on the 100m final, again by 0.01 seconds… I asked my coach what I needed to do to become a gold medalist. He spoke to me about self-discipline and it all started from there.

Frimpong went on to become the 200 meter Dutch junior champion. But because he was still an illegal alien, he could not benefit from any international competition. What if immigration would not let him back into the country? Competing overseas was too big a risk. And his illegal status stopped him from asking to enter any high school. Fortunately, there existed an institution that looked beyond Frimpong’s legal status – the Johan Cruyff Institute. Named after Holland’s (and the world’s) most famous soccer player, Johan Cruyff, this school is designed to develop the abilities of students, athletes as well as business professionals.

Frimpong’s third break was to have a neighbor who cared. The neighbor was a writer, and she wrote so persuasively, even explaining Frimpong’s illegal status, that the Johan Cruyff College took a chance on the Ghanaian. Frimpong enter the school and earned his school’s international student of the year award. The award was to be presented in Barcelona, Spain, but because Frimpong was too scared to leave the country, Johan Cruyff himself flew to Holland just to present the award to Frimpong.

Eventually, in 2008, at the age of 22, Frimpong became a Dutch citizen. He got an athletic scholarship to study in America at Utah Valley University, and dreamed of making the Netherlands track team for the 2012 London Games. But he was not able to qualify, hampered by an injury.

Entering the second half of his 20s, his dreams of running track in the Olympics was fading. But he got a visit from the Dutch bobsleigh team, and was asked to try out as their brakeman for a World Cup race in Utah. Frimpong showed enough promise that he progressed to make the Netherlands national bobsleigh team. Unfortunately, his results were just under the cut, and Frimpong missed out on the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

At the age of 28, failing to make both a Summer Olympics and a Winter Olympics, Frimpong could have ended his pursuit of an Olympic Games. And that’s when he discovered skeleton. And for some reason, this sport clicked.

I set myself the goal of becoming the first African to win a medal in Winter Olympic history. I knew it would take me four to six years to become really good, so initially my target was the 2022 Games. But when I started racing in 2016, I surprised myself. A lot of coaches said that I was sliding like someone who had been doing the sport for several years.

And so Frimpong is at the door of his long journey to make the Olympics. If he does qualify for the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, he will be first black skeleton athlete in Olympic history.

 

Note on February 2, 2018: On January 15, 2018, he got his wish and is headed for the Olympics.

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Figure Skater Sonja Henie, Global Phenomenon Part 3: Hollywood Super Star

Sonja Henie_TIME Magazine Cover_July 17, 1939
Sonja Henie on the cover of TIME Magazine, July 17, 1939

A skate, according to Mr. Webster, is a contrivance for the foot, consisting of a keel-like runner attached to a plate or frame, enabling the wearer to glide rapidly over the ice. This definition, good enough so far as it goes, is, in the light of recent developments, plainly deficient. It is evidence that the times move faster than the dictionary, and that the dictionary is not yet aware of Sonja Henie.

For this blood daughter of the Norse has during recent months demonstrated unmistakably that a skate is something more than what Mr. Webster’ says it is. To her it has proved the means to fame, fortune, movie stardom and the plaudits of kings. With it she has glided swiftly not merely over the ice, but also into one of the most extraordinary of all motion picture careers.

J.D. Shapiro of Arkansas Gazette, January 23, 1938 had an opportunity to interview Sonja Henie, a retired figure skater whose three straight Olympic gold medals and ten straight world championships in individual figure skating propelled her to the heights of Hollywood. Henie would leverage her sporting accomplishments and become one of the most famous people on the planet in the 1930s and 1940s, a movie and professional skating star, who earned millions of dollars in the process.

At the time of the interview, Henie’s third feature film – “Happy Landing” – was about to debut, and she was about to leave with 80 other skaters on a lucrative national tour of her own ice skating show, called the “Hollywood Ice Revues.” Thanks to her first two films, Henie had already earned hundreds of thousands of dollars. Her first film “One in a Million,” had already made 20th Century Fox more money than any of its other films released in 1936, while her second film, “Thin Ice,” was the fifth biggest box office hit of 1937.

Sonja Henie_One in a Millions
Sonja Henie in One in a Million

According to the Shapiro interview, skating stardom and Hollywood famedom was the goal all along.

“I said to myself,” she explains, “I’ll win 10 skating championships, then I will go into the movies,” She won the championships. Now she is in the movies. So what is strange about it? Sonja it seems has always been like that. She usually knew what she wanted. She usually go it. At seven years old, she told us recently, she wanted a pair of skates for Christmas. Her parents didn’t want to give them to her because they thought she was too young, but in the end she got them. Soon she wanted to win a Norwegian championship. She did, at 11. Next she fastened her eye on a world championships, and she got it, at 14. After that she decided to triumph in the Olympics, and nothing could stop her.

And when it came to the world of film, she targeted 20th Century Fox, led by Darryl F. Zanuck, who according to this Vanity Fair article, had a nose for talent outside the acting world and was willing to take a chance on non-conventional ideas and people. Henie’s business partner, Arthur Wirtz, who created the ice revue business for Henie in New York, would help Henie bring an ice show to Hollywood with the hopes of getting the studio heads’ attention.

Sonja’s father, Wilhelm, then went to see media mogul, William Randolph Hearst with an offer – the Henie’s would donate $5,000 to a charity of Hearst’s choice if his mistress and actress, Marion Davies, would sponsor Sonja’s ice shows. They agreed, and two shows were produced, and the stars came out to the spectacle: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and Myrna Loy – Hollywood royalty of the time.

Sonja Henie and Tyrone Power in The Second Fiddle
Sonja Henie and Tyrone Power in The Second Fiddle

And at the second show, Zanuck showed up. According to Shapiro, Zanuck signed Henie to a five-year contract, instantly making her one of the highest paid actresses of her time.

At the release of her first picture, “One in a Million”, Sonja Henie, walked arm in arm with Hollywood leading man, Tyrone Power at the film’s premier at the Roxy Theater in New York City. The one-and-a-half meter tall woman from Oslo, Norway was a giant of giants.

Here is Sonya Henie in Fly on Ice, her last theatrical film in 1958.

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Figure Skater Sonja Henie, Global Phenomenon Part 2: The Close Call in Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Cecilia Colledge
British skater Cecilia Colledge

In February 1936, there was universal expectation that Sonja Henie, aka The Ice Queen of Norway or The White Swan, would win her third gold medal in the women’s individual figure skating competition at the Gamisch-Partenkirchen Winter Olympics in Germany.

After all, Henie was just 23, and had already won the previous 2 Olympic and previous 9 world championship figure skating competitions. But up-and-comers, as always, are always nipping at the heels of champions. According to sports-reference.com, a 15-year-old Brit named Cecilia Colledge burst onto the scene by being the first female figure skater to execute a double Salchow, propelling her to victory at the European Championships only three weeks before in Berlin, Germany.

Additionally, Colledge had such strong appeal that Henie was no longer the only darling on ice. According to this article in The Independent, the powers-that-be in Nazi Germany were fans:

Sonja Henie_1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Olympics_Hitler
Sonja Henie at the 1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Olympics, meeting der Fuhrer, Adolph Hitler

The British team manager, T.D. Richardson, wrote that the 40,000 spectators who filled the outdoor stadium to capacity, included Adolf Hitler and other top Nazis. “Goering, in particular, could not keep his eyes off Cecilia. He asked me all about her on several occasions.”

After the first part of the competition – compulsory figures – Henie was ahead. But to the Norwegian’s surprise, not by much. Henie was not pleased.

In 1936 in the twin villages of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in southern Germany, Colledge was only a few points behind Henie after the school figures section. The closeness infuriated Henie, who, when the result for that section was posted on a wall in the competitors’ lounge, swiped the piece of paper and tore it into little pieces.

Fortunately, in the free skating part of the competition, Henie may have gotten the star treatment. While the first place competitor should skate last, it might follow that the second place competitor would skate second to last. Instead, Colledge was asked to skate second of the 26 total number of skater. As The Independent states, in the subjective world of figure skating, there is a distinct advantage to skating later in the day.

The early start was seen as a disadvantage, with the audience not yet whipped into a clapping frenzy and the judges known to become freer with their higher marks as the event proceeded. (Years later, a fairer, staggered draw was adopted to counteract this situation.)

Additionally, as sports-refernce.com details, Colledge’s nerves may have gotten the best of her, as she fell early in her free skate program, resulting in a good, but not great average score of 5.7. Henie, who benefited from the energy and excitement of a crowd waiting to see the Ice Queen crowned champion for a third time in a row, skated without error, well enough to maintain her hold on first, and the golden medal.

 

Sonja Henie_1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Olympics
Sonya Henie competing at the 1936 Winter Olympics
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Figure Skater Sonja Henie, Global Phenomenon Part 1: The Competitor

She was still relatively unknown to the world. But at the 1927 figure skating world championships, the young Norwegian managed to be thick in the middle of controversy. Sonja Henie, at the age of 14, won her first world championships, the five judges deciding 3 votes to 2 that young Henie was the best.

Unfortunately, the optics were poor as three of the five judges were Norwegian, and their votes carried the day, as explained in The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics 2014 Edition. As a result of Henie’s victory, the International Skating Union came to their senses and created a rule that there can no longer be more than one judge from a single country at an international competition.

A year later, Henie showed she needed no partisan assistance at the 1928 Sankt Moritz Winter Olympics. Henie was not considered a favorite as the field was strong with 20 skaters, and yet she won handily, making her the youngest figure skater to win gold at the age of 15.

To get to that level, she clearly had to get started early. Her father, Wilhelm Henie (pronounced like “penny”), was a good athlete who competed as a speed skater and a cyclist, and so encouraged his children to take up sports. At the age of 4, according to this Vanity Fair article, Sonja Hennie was on skis. At the age of 5, she took up ballet, as well as skating, and much to her parents’ surprise, she won a children’s skating competition on borrowed clamped-on blades.

Once Sonja and her parents realized that she was a natural on ice, they placed her on a diet and a program. The diet was “raw eggs and rare steaks,” a lifetime delight, and the program was three hours practice in the AM and two hours in the PM, sans school. Thanks to the resources of her furrier father, figure skating and ballet coaches were at little Sonja’s service.

Sonja Henie was at the 1924 Chamonix Winter Games competing against 7 others, including world champion and eventual gold medalist Herma Planck-Szabo. Despite the small field, Henie finished dead last in eighth place. At the incredibly young age of 11, half the age of the gold and silver medalist and a third of the age of the bronze medalist, Henie was clearly a bit over her head. She was said to have repeatedly skated to the rinkside asking for her coach’s advice during her routine.

Sonja Henie_1924 Chamnoix Winter Olympics
Sonja Henie at the 924 Chamonix Winter Olympics

But the transformation of Henie, from rough to polish, began in those four years between Chamonix in 1924 and St. Moritz in 1928. According to the Vanity Fair article, in addition to the considerable improvement in her technical skills, Henie re-created not only her own image, but the image of the figure skater as beauty and art personified.

Here was a huge visual shift—from masculine to feminine, from prose to poetry. Just as the ballerina’s pointe shoes were pink, suddenly the female ice skater’s boots were white, redolent of fairy and folk tales, of youthful purity and Nordic power. Sonja had single-handedly pulled figure skating into the realm of metaphor—and where there is metaphor, there can also be art. In “The Pavlova of the Ice,” film footage shot in 1928 (and available on YouTube), she is skating outdoors, her slow-motion leaps and spins set against snow-dusted mountains that are nothing short of Wagnerian.

The most significant part of this “visual shift” was parting ways with long skirts that all the women skaters wore to very short ones. Not only was Henie’s short skirt stunning and sensational to spectators used to more modest wear, it was revealing in ways that showed off the power and technical level of her spins and spirals, “and allowed her to perform tricks – the single axel, for instance – that had previously belonged to male skaters.”

Sonja Henie_1928 St Moritz Winter Olympics
Sonja Henie at the 1928 St Moritz Winter Olympics

At the age of 23, she had been to four Olympics, won three gold medals in three consecutive Olympiads, and 10 consecutive world championships in a row, and was arguably one of the most famous people in the world. And yet, her rising star was yet to hit its zenith.

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Legendary American Competitive Shooter Lones Wigger Passes Away at 80

Lones Wigger_medal stand 1964
Lones Wigger waves to fans after receiving his first gold medal, in 1964 at the Tokyo Olympics. He is flanked by silver medalist Velitchko Khristov of Bulgaria, left, and bronze medalist Laszlo Hammerl of Hungary.

“He must have nerves of steel to fire such a score,” said a spectator of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics of Army First Lieutenant, Lones Wigger, who was competing in the smallbore rifle prone competition. Wigger’s score of 597, which set a new Olympic and world record.

Unfortunately for the American, a Hungarian named Laszlo Hammerl went next and tied Wigger’s score, and because of a tie breaker, went on to take gold. Wigger’s silver medal was his first of three Olympic medals. He got his gold medal four days later in the 50-meter rifle three positions competition, and got his revenge as well as Hammerl finished in third.

Competing in three Olympiads, Wigger is considered one of the greatest competitive rifle shooters in the United States. He passed away on December 14, 2017. He was 80 years old.

Wigger never considered himself a natural talent. He prided himself on his work ethic, and continuous desire to practice and improve. As this article explains, persistence is all.

Wigger’s philosophy was clearly stated on a sign that hung in the Fort Benning indoor smallbore rifle range. In plain view for all to read and absorb, it read “Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not: Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Lones Wigger_Olympia 1964 Tokio
Lones Wigger, from the book in German titled Olympia 1964 Tokio

In this article, Wigger outlined things to do to be a world-class shooter:

  • Train Just As if You are in a Competition: You have to learn how to train just as if you were in a big competition. You work on every shot. You have got to learn to treat it just like a match — to get the maximum value out of every shot. You have got to use the same technique in practice and in training. A lot of shooters have a problem because they change their technique from practice to the match. In competition, you work your ass off for every shot. You have to approach the training the same way.
  • Shoot in Every Competition You Can Get Into
  • Do Everything Possible to Prepare: When Gary Anderson was a kid, he couldn’t afford a gun or ammunition. He had read about the great Soviet shooters. With his single shot rifle, he would get into position, point that gun and dry fi re for hours at a time in the three different positions. He had tremendous desire. He wanted to win and he did whatever he could to get there. When he finally got into competition, he shot fantastic scores from the beginning.
  • Visualize Winning to Train the Subconscious Mind: You picture in your mind what you want to do. You have to say, OK, I’m going to the Olympics and perform well. Picture yourself shooting a great score and how good it feels. You are training your subconscious mind. Once you get it trained, it takes over.
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Fun Facts about the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Venues

The above is a great video explanation of the venues of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. Below are a few of the fun facts I like.

The Impermanence of the Olympic Stadium: The PyeongChang Olympic Stadium, which will house 55,000 people (including me) is a temporary structure. After the Games, it will be dismantled. Apparently, the 1992 Albertville Winter Games were the first to decide that taking care of a Winter White Elephant was simply not smart economics, and the organizers of the PyeongChang Olympics thought similarly.

2018 pyeongchang olympic stadium
2018 PyeongChang Olympic Stadium

Winter and Summer Fun: The Alpensia Ski Jumping Center in the Taeback mountain range was originally planned as the site for the opening and closing ceremonies. Instead it will be host to ski jumping and the Nordic combined events in February. What’s interesting is that the landing area for ski jumping is about 100 meters, so the organizers thought that the space could be converted into a football stadium, seating 11,000, for the summer months.

Alpensia ski jumping and football pitch
The Alpensia Ski Jumping Center

Remember 2018: The Alpensia Sliding Center, which will house 7000 spectators to watch the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton competitions, has a snaking track that runs exactly 2,018 meters, so bobslieghers will never forget the year they glided to glory in South Korea.

눈내린 동계올림픽 슬라이딩센터
Alpensia Sliding Center

Desecration or Modernization: The Jeongseon Alpine Center is a series of new ski routes and structures built on previously virgin forest ranges on Mount Gariwang. As is explained in the video, this area was one of the few areas that could fulfill a requirement of a slope that had a virtual drop of 800 meters, and so the Korean Forest Ministry okayed the opening up of the 500-year old protected forest that is now the site of the alpine events. This development has been the object of ongoing protests regarding the sites impact on the environment, among other things.

Jeongseon Alpine Center

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