Skating
I just got back from the World Allround Speedskating Championships in Heerenveen. For those of you who weren't following it, this is Dutchman Sven Kramer who won the men's allround title (they race over 500, 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000) on Sunday and broke the 10,000 world record in the process. It's amazing watching somebody break a world record. He did the 10k in 12 minutes, 48.99 seconds - which is considerably faster than you can drive 10k in a car pretty much anywhere in the Netherlands given the crippling traffic congestion.
After being presented with his medal, he and the women's champ get driven around the Thialf Stadium in horse drawn sleighs with skates instead of wheels.
Ireen Wust, also from the Netherlands, (and yes I did use the phrase Double Dutch in headline of my story) won the women's event (raced over 500, 1,500, 3,000 and 5,000).
Both Wust and Kramer are only 20 and give refreshingly frank and amusing press conferences afterwards when they sit down, shake everybody's hand and then chew the fat until the stupid questions dry up.
My favorite Wust quote _ which sadly didn't make it into my story _ was in response to a question about how she felt after narrowly losing the European Championships last year in Italy.
"I felt (pauses to mull over exactly the right choice of word) ... I felt like a (this is a family blog, so please insert here a noun used to describe a part of a woman's anatomy just south of the belt line which rhymes with a flat bottomed boat propelled by pushing a stick into the river bed).
After being presented with his medal, he and the women's champ get driven around the Thialf Stadium in horse drawn sleighs with skates instead of wheels.
Ireen Wust, also from the Netherlands, (and yes I did use the phrase Double Dutch in headline of my story) won the women's event (raced over 500, 1,500, 3,000 and 5,000).
Both Wust and Kramer are only 20 and give refreshingly frank and amusing press conferences afterwards when they sit down, shake everybody's hand and then chew the fat until the stupid questions dry up.
My favorite Wust quote _ which sadly didn't make it into my story _ was in response to a question about how she felt after narrowly losing the European Championships last year in Italy.
"I felt (pauses to mull over exactly the right choice of word) ... I felt like a (this is a family blog, so please insert here a noun used to describe a part of a woman's anatomy just south of the belt line which rhymes with a flat bottomed boat propelled by pushing a stick into the river bed).
posted by corders | 1:43 PM
2 Comments:
A gondola? (No, not flat bottomed.) A raft? (No, not propelled by a stick.) Seriously, you stumped me with that one ... had to do a Google search with the terms 'flat bottomed boat pushed by stick' and found it, at last, entry number four ... Wikipedia.
I thought it might catch out a few of our Dutch readers, but you're a woman of letters.
Now I come to think of it, I'm pretty sure Tom and Huck propelled their raft down the Mississippi with a stick.
And not even Dutch papers used the quote - which showed a reserve I hadn't previously credited them with.
BTW: I just discovered site called Fark.com. It's fun. Check it out.
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