If You Can’t Break a Record, Break a Sledge
Ryan Blais, Olympic freestyle skier and Sports Ambassador for the 2010 Arctic Winter Games, has a favourite quotation: “Adversity causes some to break, others to break records.” Today, I overheard the coach of the Yukon Arctic Sports teams say jokingly to one of her athletes nervous about the daunting sledge jump event, “If you can’t break a record, break a sledge.”
I believe the advice was taken to heart. Not just by the Yukon team, who ended up with two medals in the junior girls competition, one of the girls seven sledges away from breaking the record, but by athletes from all divisions, ages groups, and geographical regions. Much like hurdles, the athletes hit, crash, and break sledges. Unlike hurdles, these structures are built like vaults (approx. 2 feet high and wide and 6 feet in length). And the competitor must jump over ten consecutively in a row, pausing for no more than 5 seconds before heading back. Competitors must jump with both feet together, land with both feet together, and not hit the sledge.
Many sledges were broken. Several by the same player like dominoes. Though the sledges are designed to fall apart (dozens of extra are kept on hand), and are covered with a sheet and reindeer pelts, the athletes do experience pain and risk injury when they hit these sledges. Nevertheless, most laugh when they hit the sledge. The audience claps when they rise up. Since most Arctic Sport competitors, to qualify for an all-around medal, sign up for every event regardless of a low skill-level for one or two event (much like heptathlon or decathlon), it was not uncommon to see a competitor disqualified on the first row of jumps, and in some cases a player could not clear even a single jump.
What a humbling experience the sledge jump must be! And I’ve been told that humility is an integral part of the aboriginal sport experience. Players encourage each other, regardless of team designation, give each other tips, and applaud each other’s outcomes. It is sometimes hard to determine the winner, as the athletes do not shout, or pound fists, or gloat, or run around with flags on their backs. They smile, shake hands, and move on to the next event. (I hate to have to say this, as it confirms stereotype, but the only exception to this sensibility seems to be team Alaska, which hoots for team members, showboats while other warm up, and actively celebrates achievement and sometimes actively mourns failure. An Alaskan female in the sledge jump crashed in each of her three sledge attempts before finishing a single row—but boy did she crash with exuberance, managing to get herself interviewed on television before the event was over! I should say this does not reflect all the Alaskan athletes, who currently lead the medal counts, but the discrepancy in behaviour has been noted by several teams.)
Sledge jump, I’ve discovered, is for the hardcore. In other words, primarily for Russians. The Russian men can, literally, jump hundreds of sledges before tiring out or even tapping one for disqualification (the record is somewhere above 500). Men who had excelled in the two-foot high-kick were unable to jump over thirty or forty sledges. Although all other categories are given three attempts, the open male category, due to the Russian contingent, are given only one attempt at the event. One of the coaches told me that this is because the event can run until one or two o’clock in the morning otherwise. They sometimes have to beg the Russians to stop, if they’re not going to attempt to break the world record. I watched a Russian jump 390 sledges today, while other athletes—remember these are athletes—could not scale more than a handful. The range of ability for this event was staggering, and again, humbling to watch. It made me admire the Alaskan girl for her spectacular failure. If I can’t break a record, I think I will take her lead and try to break at least a few other objects in the process. Or perhaps some hearts.
(*I also attended the arm-pull and stick-pull, both tests of strength and strategy among two competitors, sometimes of the same team. Today’s short poems were written in response to those events and the two-foot high kick.)
Photo: sledge jumping
