The 2018 Winter Olympics start in South Korea today, and this got me thinking about what it takes to be an elite athlete. These individuals have to be resilient, selfless and patriotic, along with possessing a sense of sportsmanship and teamwork. Most of all, they have to be passionate about their sport.

All of this brought to mind the team here at Velsoft, which led me to imagine what Olympic sport each one of us could take up if Jim would give us four years off with full pay in order to train. Here we come Beijing 2022!

Figure skating Sandra Skates around figures all day.
Speed skating Ian With all his biking, he is probably the one most able to actually finish a speed skating race.
Short track speed skating Ben Maybe when he quits smoking he can go on to longer track speed skating
Luge Jan Going feet first down a course at 140 km/hr steering by flexing your calf muscles — who but Jan could do that? She’s the only one with calves.
Bobsleigh

 

 Sydney

 

 Because she gets along with everyone and also gets her work done extremely fast, cramming into a bobsleigh with three other people and hurtling down the track seems like a good fit.
Skeleton Jim Jump on a toboggan lying face down and fly head first down the course at 130 km/h with no steering or breaking system – fearless.
Biathlon No one Don’t trust anyone here with a gun!
Snowboarding Nathan Free spirit lots of practice terrain in wilds of New Brunswick snow country!
Freestyle skiing Dylan Can’t get more freestyle than Dylan. Aerial, mogul, half-pipe are all part of Dylan’s vocabulary.
Nordic combined Cindy Her ability to keep a customer calling back for months until she gets the sale gives her the required stamina and fortitude for the cross-country ski portion. Jumping off the hill is just the celebration of having a good time.
Ski jumping Carol With her self-professed lack of sports experience, sliding down a hill and falling off the end should be easy.
Alpine skiing Marty Shows no fear (i.e. Crazy Canuck)
Cross-country skiing Michael Able to keep in there for the long haul. Like the energizer bunny just keeps on going…
Curling Dave and Scott They like the tradition of the winning team buying a round of drinks for the losing team — don’t look for them to go for the gold!
Ice hockey Brandon With his new vegan lifestyle, he now looks like a power forward.
Ice hockey Glen Lives down the road from where Sidney Crosby grew up and has weight to throw around — definitely part of the checking line.

What’s in the Pipeline:

  • Carol is still creating marketing content and editing custom work.
  • Jan is creating components for our March releases.
  • Kevin and Sydney are working on custom projects.

 Tech topics:

  • Fixed an issue causing some branding options not to work in the business theme.
  • Work is in progress on badging.
  • Work is in progress on a career path feature.

Course Count:

Courses released this month:

Here is the official count of courses for both courseware and eLearning, broken down by Computer and SoftSkills.

Computer SoftSkills Total Courses
Courseware 277 166 443
eLearning 879 164 1043

Olympics facts by the numbers:

  • The 23rd Winter Olympics take place Feb. 9-25, 2018 in PyeongChang, South Korea.
  • This is the first time South Korea has hosted the Winter Olympics. The 1988 Summer Olympics were held in Seoul, South Korea.
  • The estimated cost of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics is $10 billion, five times less than the 2014 Sochi Olympics, which were estimated to be the costliest ever.
  • In total, 13 venues, split between PyeongChang and neighboring Gangneung, will be used during the 17 days of the Games. Six new venues have been built, and additional venues have been renovated for the games.
  • A record 102 medals will be awarded in 15 disciplines.
  • Pyeongchang is located about 110 miles east of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The alpine ski resort town – that is also known for its Buddhist temples – is home to about 43,000 people.
  • The International Olympic Committee added four events to the Games this year: Big air snowboarding, freestyle skiing, mass start speed skating and mixed doubles curling.
  • The city lost to Vancouver for hosting duties in the 2010 Olympics by three votes, and by just four votes to Sochi for the 2014 event.
  • The PyeongChang Olympic Village will house up to 3,894 athletes and team officials during the Games. A second village in Gangneung will house more than 2,900 people.
  • An estimated 90 countries with a total of 2,800 athletes will compete in this year’s Olympics.

(Sources: CNN, Sports Aspire, U.S. News, Parade)