The woman’s final of the FIS Snowboard World Cup Big Air in Pyeongchang, Gangwon-do Province. (Yonhap News)
By Yoon Sojung
Many firsts can be discovered at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
Among the firsts at the upcoming sporting event will be new participating countries at the Winter Games.
The Nigerian women’s bobsleigh team has been under the most media spotlights as they’re entering the Winter Olympics as the first African country to ever do so.
As the first African team, men or women, to qualify in the bobsled, the Nigerian women’s bobsleigh team has been training since 2014. The team is led by Seun Adigun, a former Olympic track and field athlete, who formed the team with her colleagues Akuoma Omeoga and Ngozi Onwumere.
In November last year, the team qualified in the two-person women’s bobsleigh by coming in 13th place at the International Bobsleigh Skeleton Federation (IBSF) North American Cup in Calgary, Canada.
They had some difficulties in the beginning, as they had to raise money via crowd funding for their expenses, including purchasing equipment and buying tickets. Thankfully, however, Team Visa, which provides funding and equipment for promising athletes at the Olympic or Paralympic Games, offered support for the team so that they have been able to make their way to the PyeongChang Games.
They have been under the media spotlight as the team has been making bobsleigh history in Africa. Media outlets, including CNN and the BBC, have dubbed them the “Nigerian version of ‘Cool Running.’”
In alpine ski, Sabrina Simader, the first woman ski racer from Kenya, has received a lot of media attention. In September last year, Simader was named as the “African Sports Women in Europe of the year 2017” by the African Women in Europe organization.
In the short track, Maame Biney of the U.S. will be the first African-American woman athlete to make the U.S. Olympic short track speedskating team. Biney ranked at the top of the woman’s 500 m races at the Olympic Trials in Salt Lake City on Dec. 17, 2017.
Biney has been trained by Korean coach Kim Yun-mi, gold medalist in the woman’s short track 3,000 m relay at the 1994 Lillehammer and the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics.
Singapore, another country with no snow, is also a newcomer at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Cheyenne Goh earned a ticket to the PyeongChang Games in the woman’s short track 1,500 m race, according to an announcement by the International Skating Union (ISU) on Nov. 24, 2017.
Other first-comers to the Games include alpine skier Shannon-Ogbani Abeda from Eritrea in East Africa, alpine skier Besnik Sokoli from Kosovo in southern Europe, and Jeffrey Webb and figure skater Jeffrey Webb from Malaysia in Southeast Asia. These athletes will all make their debut for their home country at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Firsts can also be found in the new events that will be introduced at the PyeongChang Games.
Six new events will be added this year. There will be snowboard big air, both men’s and women’s, speedskating mass start, men’s and women’s, curling mixed doubles and the alpine team event.
Snowboard big air is an event where the competitor rides a snowboard down a hill and performs tricks after launching off very large jumps.
Speedskating mass start is an event where a maximum of 28 skaters will race for 16 laps around an open racing track without any inner or outer lanes for particular athletes. Winners of these newly-added events will also earn the title “the first Olympic event gold medalist.”
Finally, this is also first Winter Olympics where the number of gold medals on offer is in the triple-digits. The total number of gold medals will be 102, four more than were available at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, according to the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Organizing Committee.
Nigerian women’s bobsleigh team players (from left) Akuoma Omeoga, Seun Adigun, and Ngozi Onwumere make history as the first African team to enter the Winter Olympics. (Seun Adigun's instagram)
arete@korea.kr
