Beijing Winter Olympics Days 9-12

Time again for another Olympics post! I'm stealing borrowing Rachel's idea of putting my previous finish spot on the top of the post and the update on the bottom. 

I hope if you've been watching the Olympics you've enjoyed all the new sports and the classic ones as well. I haven't watched much of the cross-country skiing yet, but I'll have a chance in a day or two. I'm very interested in the cross country relay since it seems like it would be quite different than traditional quick relays. 

Day 9  - There were lots of medal events today. We spent a lot of today watching the mixed teams snowboard cross finals and DD was really excited to watch some skeleton. They've been learning about the Olympics in school and having an Olympics event there as well. She didn't remember the skeleton event so was excited to watch. We were cheering for everyone to do well and she was so excited for the Australian athlete to win a silver!

The sliding events, luge, skeleton and bobsleigh always seem like the hardest to me because you need to do well in every single run. Your total time is what counts. A lot of other events you can knock out a bad run, like Big Air or aerials. 

Day 10 - There were more short track speed skating events today, a lot of which are terrifying and intense to watch, even if you're not cheering for any particular country. There were also long track events, which seem an entirely different sport. Have any of you watched the short track relay? So confusing to try and follow them. 

This is an old video, but the only one I could find that actually shows how the relay works. 

Day 11 - Aerials today and this is another terrifying event for me. The perspective is interesting when you watch them come down the hill as well. There's a spot where it dips a fair bit to help the athlete gain speed, but it almost looks as if they slow down before they come to the vertical jump. Incredible athleticism in this one!

Today was monobob as well and I learned from Rachel's post how each athlete has the same sled manufacturer, that's a great way to level the playing field. Again, the amount of training that must go into pushing a close to 200kilo sled to race at over 100km per hour on pure ice, and the adrenaline. It was fun to watch!

Day 12 - This was a big day for Canada again when the women's team pursuit team won gold in the long oval speed skating. I feel a little bad because the Japanese skater fell and I don't know if Canada would have won otherwise. It was pretty close, but Canada had been trailing Japan for most of the event. Long track is less confusing than short track, and the skaters all bunch together so they get the most out of being in each other's drag. So the person at the back doesn't have to expend the same amount of energy as the person in front. The Canadian team also set an Olympic record, so they were skating their hearts out!

I really haven't watched many alpine events yet, but there were some exciting ones again today. I hope you've had a chance to watch some if you enjoy seeing those as well. 

And here's where I'm at now on Mini Winter Magic after about another 1K stitches:

Mini Winter Magic by HAED

stitched 1 over 1 full cross on 28ct white Monaco as charted

I have started filling in the top a bit as well. I find whatever confetti colour is farthest right and work on that one, and whatever fill-in colour is farthest right and start filling that in as well. It's filling in well, but with only a few more days I definitely am not going to finish this. Maybe I'll hit 60%? I'm close to 57% now, so it's still a lot of stitching to try and complete before then. 

I hope you're all staying well and enjoying the Olympics and stitching. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch