Tigger's Tails - March 2022

Hi Pals,
Have you all been watching the Olympics? How strange and exiting has it been this year?

With 109 medal events over 15 sports, it was pawsome to watch.
The excitement throughout resulted in Team GB gaining one gold medal for men’s curling and one silver medal for women’s curling. Well done Team GB. Woo Hoo!

The events were:
Alpine Skiing, Biathlon; Bobsled, Cross-Country Skiing, Curling, Figure Skating, Freestyle Skiing, Hockey, Luge, Nordic Combined, Short Track, Skeleton, Ski Jumping, Snowboarding and Speed Skating,

I say strange as it is weird watching and listening to each event with barely any spectators, other than carefully selected members of the host nation public, Olympic staff and other Olympians trying their best to cheer every competitor at each event. That shows the camaraderie between the athletes. Even though they could be competing against someone, they still cheer them on to help create a pawsome atmosphere.

Throughout the games there have been some really paw biting moments where medals were won or lost due to 100th’s of a second. In some parts it was really hard to keep up with the scores. Not to mention trying to work out the scoring and naming of the snowboarding jumps and twists. Although it is fun to watch.

It is hard to pick out a favourite sport as they are all exciting to watch.

The freestyle skiing is totally next level skiing as competitors try to do some really complex twists and turns, and even in some places appear to defy gravity!

The speed skating is so fast paced, if you blink you miss it.
How they are able to keep skating around the corners at those speeds amazes me.

The luge and skeleton are very exiting and scary to watch. A human jumps on a sled and slides down the course. The luge they do it feet first and on the skeleton they do it head first !

All of the events had exciting and some very spectacular moments, but the place to be this year was in the curling.
Curling could be described as a game where huge highly polished stones are slid down a big sheet of ice, where points are gained for being nearest to the centre of the target marked on the ice. Well that is the easy explanation.

There is the possibility to have more than one point on each round, depending on where teams manage to shove their stones in relation to the target.

There are up to two humans sliding alongside the stone that sweep the ice, without touching the stone, to try and change the direction of it. In essence to make it curl around other stones.
Shouting seems to be a huge part of the game too. From loud slow shouts to highly excitable screaming which causes the sweepers to either sweep crazily on the ice or stop sweeping.

I am looking forward to 2026 when it is on again.

You can enjoy the 2022 Winter Paralympics which starts on Friday the 4th of March until Sunday the 13th of March.

Regardless of which team you support, I hope you watch and cheer everyone on too.

Nose bump to you
Tigger