The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Eve Muirhead looks to Winter Olympics.
Nobody should be surprised that it’s going to be cold at a Winter Olympics, but minus 24 degrees is taking it a bit too far!
It looks like we’re going to go from the warmest Games ever to possibly the coldest ever.
In the run-up to Sochi people were talking about snow melting on the ski slopes and this time the worry is it will get too icy on them.
Although minus 24 sounds horrendous, that’s the windchill temperature. The actual temperature during the day won’t be too far away from zero.
You can’t participate in a winter sport and not be used to it being freezing but it does make you glad that you’re competing indoors!
As I’m writing this, we’ve just finished up with our holding camp in Japan and are getting ready to head for the Olympic village.
Camp couldn’t have gone any better, really. The ice conditions were fantastic and the gym facilities were good too. The four days have gone so fast.
On ice we had several ‘get in the groove’ type sessions with our coaches Tony and Glenn. We got a few technical reminders, that sort of thing. We’ve also had several team sessions, playing out different game situations and scenarios we can expect to encounter.
Dave Leith, our strength and conditioning coach, was out for the holding camp to keep us right in the gym and not only has he helped last week with our prep but he has been great for us over the last three years.
Unfortunately he is heading home now but he’s been a vital part of what we’ve done to get to this point.
It will be a real buzz to get to the village and start meeting some other Team GB members.
The holding camp was curlers only. It’s time to see some fresh faces!
Now it’s about to get really exciting and the fact that we don’t start competing until Wednesday gives us a good opportunity to get a feel for everything.
I came off social media from the start of the holding camp so I haven’t really heard what the talk is about the Games so far. I’m sure the Russian situation will be getting discussed a lot and I’ve picked up the odd bit on the news about a norovirus outbreak.
There’s been no extra advice for the British athletes but it does reinforce how important it is to always have hand gel with you and be careful with hygiene.
You work so hard for so long to be in this position and going down ill would be a disaster.
The advice for the opening ceremony from the British Olympic Association because of the temperatures is to march and then leave, which sounds like a good idea to me! We’ll be 50 minutes driving up a mountain and hanging around before it.
Like I said, though, we’ve got plenty of time afterwards before we start competing so we’ll enjoy the atmosphere over the weekend then practice on Monday and Tuesday.
We’ll probably watch a bit of the curling mixed doubles to get a feel for the arena and I’m also hoping to get to the speed skating.
Thanks to everyone who has sent a good luck message and here’s hoping I’ll be writing my next column after the Games with another Olympic medal!
It will be a real buzz to get to the village and start meeting some of the other Team GB members