Russian Skieres Show Real Olympic Spirit

February 9, 2014

The German skiers in Sochi received brand new skis but still needed to grind them. A day before the races started the grinding machine they had brought with them broke down. Without appropriate grinding chances for any success in the competitions were low.

The Austrian and the Swiss team were asked for help but declined. The Russians, without a fuzz, showed Olympic spirit and helped. They offered their grinding machine. During one night over 40 pairs of skis were prepared for the German team.

Some of the German skiers, as well as some of their Russian competitors, are in serious competitive range of medals. The Russian, due to their graciousness, may have given away some Bronze, Silver or even Gold medal.

They, unlike the Russia bashing "western" media, showed real Olympic spirit. May the best win.

original report (in German)

Posted by b on February 9, 2014 at 15:16 UTC | Permalink

Comments

That is certainly the best reaction to the constant bashing of a West gone crazy in its Russophobia!

Posted by: Nobody | Feb 9 2014 21:08 utc | 1

russia phobia is now an sport seeking olympic accreditation

Posted by: brian | Feb 9 2014 21:50 utc | 2

the plural of ski is skis, people who use them are skiers

Posted by: Cu Chulainn | Feb 9 2014 21:52 utc | 3

Your point about the “Russia bashing ‘western’ media” really struck home. A lot of the coverage has been about the threat of terrorism (leaving out the parade of scare-mongering that is done for our sporting events), the corruption and expense, the problems with torches, the protests over the homosexual issue, etc. I’m sure the Russians are no saints but neither are our politicians.
What gets me is the hatred the neocons and their ilk have for Russia. Bush’s treatment of Russia was bad enough. I’m reminded of a comic from campaign 2008 where Hillary wants to stay in Iraq and Iran. Obama says that’s crazy. Then you see Brzezinski behind him and he says “We have to attack Russia.”

Posted by: Curtis | Feb 9 2014 22:27 utc | 4

oops left out a word. Hillary wanted to stay in Iraq and ATTACK Iran.

Posted by: Curtis | Feb 9 2014 22:30 utc | 5

Is this PR?
Tuning racing skis is craft unto itself, almost like the watchmaking. Just like in F1’s competition each race is different and require re-alignment of the bolid. So is ski race, an edges has to be beveled (1°-3°) according to the piste/slope and perhaps legs anatomy of racer. In short, everything is done by a hands using tool from companies like Tognar or Toko etc. No machine is used in the World Cup series and the Olympic Games.

Posted by: neretva’43 | Feb 9 2014 23:06 utc | 6

Amazing. After dropping the ball (to put it kindly) regarding the Boston Bombings, US officials are now trying to say the Russians have not been “sharing enough information” with the US regarding terrorism.

Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, used his Sunday talkshow appearance to fault Moscow for not sharing intelligence.
“We were hoping the Russians would share more information on internal security threats, of which the operation in Dagestan is a great example,” he told ABC’s This Week. “That obviously had some nexus to the Games. It would have been helpful if we’d had a full and robust relationship and shared that information.” From here: Napolitano plays down US fears over Sochi Olympic Games security

So do we have to remind him of this? Russian official: US ‘ignored Boston bombers warning’
I’m well past expecting US officials to show even an ounce of self-awareness, but this Mike Rogers clown attacking the Russians over this particular subject is simply too much. Perhaps a legless man or a grieving parent from the Boston area could call Mr. Rogers and remind him of just how the US has responded to Russian “information sharing” in the past?
All the more reason to drag out this nugget from the Jeremy Hammond Stratfor leaks. Because it doesn’t seem that the US responds on Counter-Terrorism even to the requests of its closest allies like the UK and Canada, so why should the Russians try?

“According to a reliable inside the beltway investigative journalist that covers national security affairs, the RCMP is up in arms over several pending requests to the FBI on terrorist suspects on the loose in Canada and the U.S. that the FBI has failed to respond back on. Reportedly, MI5 has expressed similar frustrations w/leads dying in the FBI in-box. There is a meeting today at Foggy Bottom in which the FBI declined to attend on UK/Canada/US cooperation on CT [counter-terrorism] investigations.
Note – The arrogance continues…I attribute the dysfunction to mis-management (or lack of supervisors at Hqs) since nobody wants to work CT [counter-terrorism] cases.”

Of course, it all makes sense, I suppose. Why would one want to dig into terrorism cases when one is funding the same in Syria.
Could these liars be anymore craven?

Posted by: guest77 | Feb 10 2014 0:04 utc | 7

6) Yep, it is silly PR. The article (in one of Germany’s leading papers :-)) quotes Biathlon not racing, but the preparation of skis there is handcraft, too.

Posted by: somebody | Feb 10 2014 1:26 utc | 8

I suspect that what neretva @ 6 and somebody @ 8 said about honing the edges of skis is as true today as it was 20 years ago. If so, then one feels obliged to ask why FAZ published a story which begs the question “With ‘friends’ like Austria and Switzerland, isn’t it a little silly to treat Russians as enemies?”

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 10 2014 3:59 utc | 9

there seems to be a general tendency to publish one or the other mildly sympathizing article now. Maybe propaganda has gone to such absurd dimensions (and at least in german online sites 95% of comments are identifying and critizising that) that they feel it adds more credibility to their bullshit propaganda if they spice it with a grain of opposite bullshit.
BTW I couldn’t care less for winter sports and stuff, but this time I enjoy every medal that a german athlete will win, just because no german politician is around to stick his f.ck.ng face in the camera with them.

Posted by: peter radiator | Feb 10 2014 7:56 utc | 10

@Cu Chulainn @3 thanks , corrected
@nervetna´43 @6 In short, everything is done by a hands using tool from companies like Tognar or Toko etc. No machine is used in the World Cup series and the Olympic Games.
That is simply wrong. There are lots of machines available for such services. The finish thereafter may be by hand but the basic beveling and grinding is done with the help of machines.
I have no reason to doubt the FAZ story. It is a premier paper not some broadsheet and the report is by their own reporter in Sochi.

Posted by: b | Feb 10 2014 8:44 utc | 11

@7: Of course the US is p*ssed not getting threat information.
Hypothetical scenario:
Russia to US: We have information that Scary Terrorist Group is planning to attack Sochi
US to Russia: Oh that’s bad. Anything we can do to help?
…
US to Scary Terrorist Group: Anything we can do to help?

Posted by: Yonatan | Feb 10 2014 11:19 utc | 12

11) sorry b. you are from Hamburg and not used to skiing.
This here is same Faz on the Biathlon “Wachscontainer” from 2009
compared to that the nice feel good story is just not credible.
This here is a video on how it is done.
By the way, you believe “quality papers” :-))?

Posted by: somebody | Feb 10 2014 12:34 utc | 13

Saidnaya is under attack! God help them.
See here: http://levantreport.com/2014/02/10/saidnaya-under-rebel-attack-christian-locals-believe-they-are-targets-of-imminent-insurgent-ground-invasion-cnn-justifies-rebel-assault/
and current update here:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2014/02/syria-town-saidnaya-fight-militants-monastery.html#

Posted by: Brad | Feb 10 2014 13:20 utc | 14

@somebody @13 11) sorry b. you are from Hamburg and not used to skiing.
Even people from Hamburg are able to travel and also able to ski.
There is quite a difference in beveling and grinding skis and in waxing them. The last is usually done by hand. The other are done with the help of machines. A 2 degree bevel may be good for one type of snow, a 3 degree bevel for another type. That is why the step is done only a day or two before a race starts. Waxing is done just hours before a race.
Unless you provide something else than the obviously false “no machines are used to prepare skis” your claim that the story is false is just that – a ridiculous unfounded claim.

Posted by: b | Feb 10 2014 18:35 utc | 15

15 :-)) this here is the real Thuringian story about the “Schleifmaschine”
Less exciting but more likely true:
“It was great help … the start of the German team had not been in danger but we would not have been able to prepare a few things …”

Posted by: somebody | Feb 10 2014 19:23 utc | 16

“What gets me is the hatred the neocons and their ilk have for Russia. Bush’s treatment of Russia was bad enough. I’m reminded of a comic from campaign 2008 where Hillary wants to stay in Iraq and Iran. Obama says that’s crazy. Then you see Brzezinski behind him and he says “We have to attack Russia.”-Curtis @4
Don’t underestimate the importance of slavophobia in anglo american culture. In the US this has much to do with the C19th perception that-in the final analysis-the contenders for world power would boil down to Russia and the USA.
It was an analysis born of racism, in the sense that non-white countries were not seen as contenders, but also a reflection of the race to the Pacific from east to west in the US, from west to east in Russia, laying down railways, cutting down forests and establishing farms on “virgin” soil in which both were involved. The fact that both vigorous young empires relied on forced labour was another similarity that lasted until the mid sixties.
The point is that the rivalry between the two powers long ante-dated 1917. Just as after 1945, when Stalin was busily involved in suppressing Communist revolutionaries all over the world, US anti-communism was nothing much more than an excuse for its imperialism.
Which goes some way to explain why, 25 years after the Soviet Union’s place was taken by capitalist states, US hostility to Russia, like its enormous military budget (allegedly developed to protect the ‘Free World’ from communism) still grows.
As to Brzezinski, like (Washington Post columnist) Ann Applebaum’s husband in the Polish cabinet, he is just pursuing the long feud against Russia that Ukraine perfectly exemplifies, since Poland’s dirty little secret always was that beneath its nobility’s calls for freedom was included the freedom to exploit the Ukrainian peasantry.
Guest 77 @7. Rogers, who is deeply enmeshed in the NSA/FBI culture regularly wins re-election to the House. I’m not sure whether, like Speaker Boehner in Ohio, he is not even unopposed by the Democrats.
If ever a man has nailed his Panopticon colours to the mast it is Rogers. What does the “left” do? Could not Michael Moore run against him?

Posted by: bevin | Feb 10 2014 19:57 utc | 17

Machines are certainly used to grind ski edges and normalize bases, with final finishing done by hand with a file for the edges and a heat gun and iron for the bases. Some fanatics will do all the work by hand (I know, because I was one of those fanatics!), but for situations like this where you have to do a huge batch of skis overnight the machine is a godsend.

Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Feb 10 2014 20:29 utc | 18

Begging your pardon, Bevin, but neocon hatred for Russia has more to do with the age old animus against the Russian Orthodox Church and culture.

Posted by: amspirnational | Feb 10 2014 23:13 utc | 19

18) :-)) The guy giving the interviews though heads a team of 26.
Anyway, the story has traveled now with a twist.

According to several media reports, Germany had unsuccessfully asked several other nations, including neighbor Austria, for help before getting access to the Russian machine.
That allegation, however, has now upset the Austrian Olympic Committee. “There was never such request to the Austrian ski federation,” the AOC said in a statement on Sunday.

I am now waiting for a statement from Wintersteiger as it was their machine that supposedly broke down.

WINTERSTEIGER’s strong position in Russia means it has been able to acquire a large number of orders since 2010 due to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. In June 2013, the company received another go-ahead for a large project, namely the equipping of the ski rental center at the Gornaya Karusel ski resort in Krasnaya Polyana.
Among other things, the order includes supplying Innova and Premia dryers and various models of ski and snowboard racks. 240 Top storage lockers will have space for 1,080 pairs of skis, and the ski service workshop will be able to produce 80 pairs of perfectly tuned skis every hour. A Discovery SDF, a Sigma B, a Basejet and a Waxjet 93 will be used here. Equipping the resort with BOOTDOC products completes the order, and WINTERSTEIGER is pleased it is going to be able to provide everything from one source and by the end of November, as promised.
250 racing structures tested
WINTERSTEIGER machines have already demonstrated their strengths in the extensive stone grinding project for the Russian Olympic Committee: Using a Race NC, a Sigma RS and a Discovery, skis and snowboards belonging to Russian Olympic participants were ground and racing structures tested in different weather conditions.
A team made up of representatives from the Russian Olympic Committee, the Russian Skiing and Snowboard Federation, ski service experts and athletes tested about 250 racing structures from January to March. The athletes tried out 250 structures (140 for Nordic skiing and 110 for Alpine skiing and snowboarding) on the racecourse at the Rosa Khutor ski resort and on the Psekhako Plateau. At the end, the top 25 structures (11 for Nordic skiing and 14 for Alpine skiing), i.e. the structures with the best results, were stored in the Russian Olympic Committee’s database. This valuable data will optimize the conditions for the Russian competitors in all skiing disciplines at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

So who helped out – the Russian Skiing Federation or the Wintersteiger shop supplying the German – and other – teams.

Posted by: somebody | Feb 11 2014 0:50 utc | 20

“…neocon hatred for Russia has more to do with the age old animus against the Russian Orthodox Church and culture.”
In some respects, amspirational @19, this is important: the Russian Orthodox Church had many enemies and, in alliance with the Romanov family, made many more. But, while this might help explain the attitude of the neo-con ideologists, many of whom had Russian origins, and indeed Urquart and his slavophobes, it takes no account of the material fact of the rivalry between two Pacific bound empires.
As to which I will do no more than assert that it existed long before the Bronstein family had taken up farming, which was long before those few neo-cons who can think, switched their allegiance from Trotsky to the Boeing Corporation. When they did that they became, in principle at least, fans of the Orthodox Church as an enemy of godless communism.

Posted by: bevin | Feb 11 2014 1:40 utc | 21

@Yonatan

US to Russia: Oh that’s bad. Anything we can do to help?
…
US to Scary Terrorist Group: Anything we can do to help?

ahahaa… sad but true

Posted by: guest77 | Feb 11 2014 1:40 utc | 22

18) Yep, these guys are supposed to be fanatics. Anyway, it is not difficult to get a computerized “Schleifmaschine” in Sochi with all the snow profiles of the place. The broken down machine would be by Wintersteiger, the firm equips the German national team:

WINTERSTEIGER’s strong position in Russia means it has been able to acquire a large number of orders since 2010 due to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. In June 2013, the company received another go-ahead for a large project, namely the equipping of the ski rental center at the Gornaya Karusel ski resort in Krasnaya Polyana.
Among other things, the order includes supplying Innova and Premia dryers and various models of ski and snowboard racks. 240 Top storage lockers will have space for 1,080 pairs of skis, and the ski service workshop will be able to produce 80 pairs of perfectly tuned skis every hour. A Discovery SDF, a Sigma B, a Basejet and a Waxjet 93 will be used here. Equipping the resort with BOOTDOC products completes the order, and WINTERSTEIGER is pleased it is going to be able to provide everything from one source and by the end of November, as promised.
250 racing structures tested
WINTERSTEIGER machines have already demonstrated their strengths in the extensive stone grinding project for the Russian Olympic Committee: Using a Race NC, a Sigma RS and a Discovery, skis and snowboards belonging to Russian Olympic participants were ground and racing structures tested in different weather conditions.
A team made up of representatives from the Russian Olympic Committee, the Russian Skiing and Snowboard Federation, ski service experts and athletes tested about 250 racing structures from January to March. The athletes tried out 250 structures (140 for Nordic skiing and 110 for Alpine skiing and snowboarding) on the racecourse at the Rosa Khutor ski resort and on the Psekhako Plateau. At the end, the top 25 structures (11 for Nordic skiing and 14 for Alpine skiing), i.e. the structures with the best results, were stored in the Russian Olympic Committee’s database. This valuable data will optimize the conditions for the Russian competitors in all skiing disciplines at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Posted by: somebody | Feb 11 2014 1:41 utc | 23

“If ever a man has nailed his Panopticon colours to the mast it is Rogers.”
He is become the face of the US surveillance state, for sure. This is real scum, like a descendant of J. Edgar Hoover.

Posted by: guest77 | Feb 11 2014 1:41 utc | 24

The talk was all on Sotchi hotels and their bathrooms, but in the UK whole willages couldn’t use the toilets since Friday! (Conveniently, the very negative article that figured yesterday eveninig at the front page has been removed even from the “England” menu).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26111598

Posted by: Mina | Feb 11 2014 6:50 utc | 25

24) It is silly. Russia plans for Sochi to become a top ski resort and that is what it will be. They are bound to have the latest technology there.
That “help” story is very funny actually. It passed through the media in all kinds of variations (Fox News asked the Austrians who said no one had approached them for help)and the German officials expressing thankfulness get higher and higher up to the president of the German Olympic Sports Confederation Alfons Hörmann who is getting more and more positive in his interviews.
Sports is business, and sports businesses want to showcase the latest technology. Alfons Hörmann openly says that German sports venues will no longer be competitive without investment – and that investment will not come, and Germans will not vote for huge events destroying the rest of the landscape there is.

Posted by: somebody | Feb 11 2014 7:55 utc | 26

guest77@7
Mike and Kitti Clemons-Rogers are getting rich on ‘security’, and the Tsaernaevs worked for the CIA. The criminals and terrorists are in the US Congress and the alphabet soup of its ‘security’ agencies. Everyone who knows anything knows it. No one who writes anything writes a word about it. Our USA is corrupt, soup to nuts.
I hope that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev declines the plea bargain … otherwise they’ll sweep him and his terrorist mentors at the CIA all up and put them away again – until next ‘Christmas’.
I imagine many of the same CIA crew are active in the Ukraine. Didn’t b point out that they used the same silk-screened t-shirts … just change the lettering?

Posted by: john francis lee | Feb 11 2014 8:04 utc | 27

#10:
“there seems to be a general tendency to publish one or the other mildly sympathizing article now. Maybe propaganda has gone to such absurd dimensions (and at least in german online sites 95% of comments are identifying and critizising that) that they feel it adds more credibility to their bullshit propaganda if they spice it with a grain of opposite bullshit.”
I think what triggered it was the fact that even anti-Putin Russians started to get the impression that the West really do hate them.

Posted by: rkka | Feb 11 2014 10:05 utc | 28

at 1:09 Putin thanked by Jamaician bob sled guys, for one of the best games theyve seen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q8rmuWkPa6U

Posted by: brian | Feb 11 2014 11:47 utc | 29

Russian and Slavic societies are teaching us all a lesson.

Posted by: Fernando | Feb 13 2014 0:02 utc | 30

@27 Nice, thanks for those links John.

Posted by: guest77 | Feb 13 2014 3:16 utc | 31

@29 Very fun! Thanks for that.

Posted by: guest77 | Feb 13 2014 3:16 utc | 32

the new cold war
http://rt.com/news/olympic-boycott-art-1980-794/

Posted by: brian | Feb 13 2014 15:47 utc | 33

forget Russia…anti gay law n KANSAS USAhttp://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/02/13/kansas_anti_gay_segregation_bill_is_an_abomination.html
president Putin should send a gay ambassador to US

Posted by: brian | Feb 13 2014 16:46 utc | 34

remember #sochiproblems? tje twitter sochi bashing #tag
one complaint against Sochi for winter olympics is…..its too warm! will they have to pack in the snow? the Sochi bashers have forgotten this little item
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2010/feb/10/vancouver-lacks-snow
yes Vancouver had to bring in snow!
#sochiproblems forgot all about Vancouver http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/02/12/sochi_taps_into_strategic_snow_reserve_is_the_olympic_snow_shortage_a_sign.html

Posted by: brian | Feb 14 2014 8:43 utc | 35

shamefaced US humbled: after being wound by media frenzy over anti gay laws….
US delegation member calls Olympic trip ‘humbling’
Published on February 13, 2014
SOCHI, Russia (AP) — A member of the U.S. delegation sent to the Olympics by President Barack Obama says she witnessed no backlash over the inclusion of homosexuals in the group as an apparent protest against Russia’s anti-gay laws.
Caitlin Cahow said Thursday she received a warm welcome from the Russians she met, both officials and everyday citizens.
The two-time member of the U.S. Olympic women’s hockey team was named to the delegation along with former tennis star Billie Jean King and figure skater Brian Boitano, who are also gay. King was forced to withdraw because her mother is ill. Cahow replaced her at the opening ceremony.
A Harvard graduate who is now back at Boston College Law School, Cahow said the trip was “humbling” and “life-changing.”
http://www.newsaddicted.com/2014/02/13/us-delegation-member-calls-olympic-trip-humbling/

Posted by: brian | Feb 15 2014 11:27 utc | 36

when it comes to Chutzpah, few can match the americans and their 1980 moscow olympics boycott: the reason was a very highminded but hypocritical one: invading nations are bad!
‘Then came the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Just before they started, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance spoke at an event opening the Games. He said, “Let me make my government’s position clear. We will oppose the participation of an American team in any Olympic Games in the capital of an invading nation.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-failed-u-s-boycott-of-the-1980-moscow-summer-olympics/5369121
US would never invade another state(Vietnam cambodia laos Korea…..later Iraq and…wait for it…Afghanistan!)

Posted by: brian | Feb 18 2014 7:54 utc | 37

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