Held on February twelfth through the eighteenth, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver brought in over 2,600 athletes from all over the world. There were 86 different events featuring seven different sports, including:

• Bobsled
• Skeleton
• Ice Hockey
• Luge
• Figure Skating
• Speed Skating
• Short Track Speed Skating
• Curling

Featuring summer and winter sports, The Olympic Games are a major international event that draws in millions of viewers. They are held every two years, rotating both summer and winter activities. So respectively, winter games are held every four years, as are summer games.

The games are typically sponsored by large selection of wealthy sponsors like Mcdonalds, Visa, Kodak, GE, and so on and so forth. This year, The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW) has made the decision to become an official Olympic Sponsor. CEO and Chair Andrew Liveris announced on July 16^th, 2010 that the company has become a Worldwide Olympic Partner via The Olympic Partners Program (TOP).

According to a press release by Bob Plishka of Dow, they will be known as the official “Chemistry Company” of the Olympic Movement. Congruently, they’ll be partnering with the IOC or International Olympic Committee and National Olympic Committees around the world all the way through 2020.

The International Olympic Committee is composed of a large number of both national and international sporting organizations and federations, media partners, athletes, judges, officials and any other related institution that agrees to follow the rules of the Olympic Charter. They are response for the following duties:

1. Choosing a hosting city
2. General Planning of the games
3. Updating and approving the program at hand
4. Negotiating Sponsors and distribution of rights

In a statement to the press: “With our long-standing commitment to global sustainability, innovation, scientific excellence and

Addressing world challenges, we believe Dow is perfectly matched to the vision of the Olympic

Movement, which is about peace, progress and the world coming together to celebrate our common humanity,” said Liveris. He goes on to mention that the partnership will only create new opportunities for both organizations and be a great growth catalyst for Dow and some of its newer ventures. President of the IOC, Dr. Jacques Rogge, welcomed Dow with open arms at the same press conference, stating “We are delighted to welcome Dow to the TOP Program…As a Global leader in the chemical industry and an innovator in sustainability, Dow will provide much more than critical financial support to the Olympic Movement. They will also bring industry-leading expertise and innovation to the Games themselves. Dow will be an important partner in making our vision for sustainability and global cooperation a reality.”

Author: David Suntin is a member of the sports blogosphere and speaks to a vast audience regarding major sporting events worldwide.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SKIING

Skiing has been around for a good length of time and it’s set to be around for a lot longer. Providing we have the snow that is! There might be a few things about the history of skiing that you may not know about, so here’s a brief history lesson in skiing as well as short video:

ski videos >>

There’s always going to be conflicting arguments about where the first skis were found and/or discovered. There are two claims to this but they seem to centre around the same time period. The first is from Russia and it’s a very vague date of 6300-5000 BC. The skis were made of hard wood and were found in the northwest of Moscow. The other claim has the oldest skis found in Norway around 5100 BC, give or take 150 years. Either way, whichever one came first, skiing existed long before most people care to think. There were drawings on walls of skis and skiing, which can only lead you to believe that someone was shredding powder even before spoken language was developed.

All early skis that were found in Norway, Finland and Sweden were mostly used on flat ground since ski bindings were loose toe straps that would not keep the skis attached to ski boots during downhill runs. It seems that our modern day skiing and freeskiing was a far cry from skiing at that moment in time.

You can’t forget that whatever man seems to create, it will invariably use it in some form of war. According to records, skis were used during the Battle of Oslo as the Norwegians spied on their Swedish enemies (around 1200 AD). Not only that, but the Norwegian military formed the Ski Company in 1747. It paved the way for skis to be attached to the boots at both the heel and toe thus creating a version of the ski you see today.

Modern day skiing was developed around the 1850s by a Norwegian chap named Sondre Norheim (are you seeing a pattern emerging yet?). He developed the first stiff bindings using wet birch roots tied to his boots, which allowed him more control. With Sondre developing the binding, Mathuas Zdarskey of Austria introduced the technique of pushing one ski at an angle to the fall line so that you can control your speed.

These two guys were the basis of a lot of the skiing techniques and equipment you see today. After seeing the Mathias throw his moves around on the mountains, Hannes Schneider was inspired and developed new stopping techniques from which most skiing techniques are based on! It seems that the old saying of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ really applies to skiing.

In the early 1900s, Skiing became a very popular sport and the first slalom race was held in 1921. Despite this being the first race, there are published descriptions of ski racing from the 16^th century and there are newspaper clippings from the 1850s of similar events. I guess we’ll never really know about the first ever race but I’m thinking that the 16^th century is a damn good place to start.

After the first slalom race in 1921, the popularity grew and grew over three years and culminated in the first ever Winter Olympics to be held in Chamonix except back then it was call The International Winter Sports Week. Skiing dominated the event listings with Nordic Combined Skiing, Cross Country Skiing and Ski Jumping taking up 3 of the 9 events. Not too long after this was, what could well be, the first Big Air competition. It was held in Madison Square Garden, New York in 1930. It would be the basis of many big air comps that we see today such as Freestyle.ch.

Not much has changed since the 30s. Obviously there have been dramatic changes in ski technology and skiing competitions but they all come down to these facts and always will do. Skis have become so scientific that you could bet your life on it and professionals regularly do. From slalom, to downhill, to freestyle, skiers will be using the best technology in skiing each winter to fling themselves down and off mountains and the one person they have to thank? Well, it’s either some Russian or some Norwegian but either way, they have to thank someone. Sports progress so quickly these days it’s easy to forget where it started so take the time to give this a read and hopefully it gives you the historic fix you were after.

If you were more interested in the history of Freeskiing, I’ll let the guys from Salomon tell you how it happened. After all, it’s much easier to watch something these days. Enjoy!