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EXCLUSIVE / 09.03.16
Laura Deas column: 'Fresh challenge after a long, tough season'LIVE AT THE SPOTLIGHT
I'm writing from the team apartment in Pyeongchang, venue for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.
We're here for the very first time to test out the new skeleton track and see what the venue has to offer and do vital prep work for when the team comes back to compete next year.
Each time a new Olympic venue is completed, there is a process of checking its safety and suitability for competition called 'homologation', where a select number of athletes are invited to try it out for the first time.
Some athletes were selected by random draw across the international field and those lucky few came here last year when things were much less finished to try out the track.
That completed successfully, the next stage is to hold a test event, which for skeleton is this year's final World Cup
round.
The venue is looking great, almost finished and very clean and well presented. There are always small teething issues when everything's new as you might expect, but the organisers are helpful and doing their best to put on a great event.
The track is unique, with corner trajectories that have never been seen before, a long push start and technical questions all the way down.
There's no kreisel here (a 360 degree corner), but plenty of other challenges from the moment you jump on the sled to the finish line.
The longer your career as a slider, the fewer times you get to experience sliding a new track for the first time as they are only now built at new Olympic venues once every four years.
Obviously learning new tracks is a fairly common occurrence as a beginner when you first start competing and travelling, and at that time feeling out of your comfort zone almost becomes second nature as brand new scenarios are thrown at you constantly.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/sport/wales/39139741
We're here for the very first time to test out the new skeleton track and see what the venue has to offer and do vital prep work for when the team comes back to compete next year.
Each time a new Olympic venue is completed, there is a process of checking its safety and suitability for competition called 'homologation', where a select number of athletes are invited to try it out for the first time.
Some athletes were selected by random draw across the international field and those lucky few came here last year when things were much less finished to try out the track.
That completed successfully, the next stage is to hold a test event, which for skeleton is this year's final World Cup
round.
The venue is looking great, almost finished and very clean and well presented. There are always small teething issues when everything's new as you might expect, but the organisers are helpful and doing their best to put on a great event.
The track is unique, with corner trajectories that have never been seen before, a long push start and technical questions all the way down.
There's no kreisel here (a 360 degree corner), but plenty of other challenges from the moment you jump on the sled to the finish line.
The longer your career as a slider, the fewer times you get to experience sliding a new track for the first time as they are only now built at new Olympic venues once every four years.
Obviously learning new tracks is a fairly common occurrence as a beginner when you first start competing and travelling, and at that time feeling out of your comfort zone almost becomes second nature as brand new scenarios are thrown at you constantly.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/sport/wales/39139741