BBC desperate to push heroic blacks battling against the odds narrative…if it was the same narrative as the BBC uses for Brexit they might as well give up now…..
The Nigerian bobsleigh team racing towards history
Fighting freezing winds, bone-breaking speed and up to five g-force, the Nigerian women’s bobsleigh team are training hard in western Canada.
So someone from a land of tropical sun and overbearing heat wants to compete in a winter sport….holy smoke….
Jamaica were there first a long, long time ago….
Yep, it’s not bias as such, but it is one of the BBC’s most noticeable characteristics that everything outside of London and/or pre-1997 is a closed book to them (except slavery and Hitler).
I bet the guy who wrote this sneers at Brexiteers for being insular Little Englanders.
At first I thought it was a 419 fraud scam for which the Nigerians are world renowned.
I particularly like the “Fighting freezing winds, bone-breaking speed …..”
These women are training in Calgary. I live in Calgary and can see the Olympic Park from my house.
The COP as it is known houses some of the best indoor bobsled training facilities going. I know, I’ve seen them. As regards the weather, I’ve been outside in shirtsleeves in – 15C and the reason is that the climate is semi arid. There is virtually no moisture in the air and little or no wind. When the sun is shining, which is most days, it is warm, despite the minus temperatures.
Oh and if you pony up the money, which isn’t too much, anyone can go on a bob run with a professional driver and brakeman. It runs throughout most of the year.
https://www.winsport.ca/activities/winter/bobsleigh_rides.cfm
But of course the BBC loves to overegg this sort of stuff. Look at the link I’ve provided and you’ll see that it’s up to 4G on the turns. But that’s not good enough for the BBC. They just had to ramp it up the extra 1 point to 5G.
Having just turned 70 I recently did dog sledding in the back country near Banff and I’ll probably do the bobsled sometime this year although the skiing may have to stop soon as the knee joints ain’t what they used to be. Who knows I may even be able to wave at some of the 50 or so BBC staff who’ve been sent out to cover this momentous event for Africa.
It is an interesting story and worthy of reporting. But no doubt, as has been said above, the BBC will overdo the story and make a lot more of it than it deserves.
Good luck to the Nigerian Ladies, I hope they enjoy themselves in the “Olympics”*.
* I haven’t regarded the winter games as being truly part of the Olympics since they stopped holding them in Olympic years. It was again change for change’s sake.
I think it was change to fill out the IOC’s calendar. There was already too much glad-handing and hospitality in an Olympic year, so they decided to spread it around.