U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Athletes Answer Olympics Questions From Twitter

Hey, everyone, what's up?

I'm a Paralympic snowboarder.

I am a freeskier.

We are bobsledders.

Figure skaters.

Today we're doing Olympic Support.

(powerful music)

How does one try out a ski jump

to find out they're any good at it?

I'd love to do it, to be the next Eddie Eagle.

I think that it's exactly like that.

You just have to try it to see if you're good at it.

I mean, like, to get to where I am in the sport,

or the other guys on the team,

it's so many years and everything.

But it all started at the same spot,

on the tiny, tiny jump, skiing, small tricks,

and then you slowly progress.

So, you gotta start at the bottom.

Have you ever been stuck on a ski lift?

It happened to me at Wolf Creek back in 1978.

Yes, I have been stuck.

The worst time was on Christmas Eve, late at night.

It was an hour and half we were sitting there.

I had no goggles on and it was very cold.

It sucked.

Tweet from Mrs. Jacobson.

My first grade students are working on an Olympic project.

They would like to know what the hardest

trick in figure skating is.

In ice dance, one of the most difficult tricks,

or elements, that's the technical term, is twizzles.

And twizzles are rotating turns done on one foot.

They need to be done across the ice, in unison.

So that would be one of the harder tricks.

But we like doing them.

Yeah, we're good at 'em.

How in the world do figure skaters land like that?

Three question marks.

I'm gonna break my legs and arms

and hit my head and die, man.

It's really refreshing to see a tweet where

someone's questioning the difficulty,

because with figure skating you want things

to look effortless.

But it definitely takes a lot of training,

both on and off the ice.

So, practice.

Practice.

This tweet is from Jeff Barnard.

How hard is the bobsled?

Feel the rhythm, feel the ride.

Bobsled is actually very intense.

When we go down the track we go about 75 to 95 miles an hour

and we reach up to five Gs of pressure.

If you never have felt a G, it's hard to explain

until you've gone down and felt it.

So, we do feel the rhythm, and we do feel the rhyme,

and we'd rather feel that than the G forces.

Sophia asks, Does anyone understand how bobsled works?

Why do they have all these heats?

So, if you've ever watched track and field,

you've seen heats.

Prelims, semi-finals, finals.

Bobsled is the very same thing,

but all of those heats count.

So, instead of track and field where they start new

each time, and then whoever goes on, goes on

and that fastest time counts, bobsled counts

your prelim time, your semi-final time,

your final time, and whoever has the lowest

time at the end of it wins.

This tweet is from ASAP Nubian.

Does anyone know how the inside of a bobsled looks like?

Or how they turn?

#JustWondering.

So the inside of a bobsled looks very basic.

There's not a lot in there, there's not a lot of padding.

It's mostly carbon fiber, and sometimes fiberglass,

the inside of the sled.

As drivers we do have a seat, but the brakemen

just sit in the back with their heads

in between their legs, their legs stretched out,

and they're just along for the ride.

So as drivers, we're doing most of the work down the track.

We actually drive by a pulley system.

So there's two rings in the shape of Ds.

We hold the straight part of the Ds,

and they attach to ropes in the front of our sled,

which then attach to our runners, which are our blades,

and they move left and right.

So if you want to move left, you move

the left D ring towards you.

You wanna go right, you pull the right D ring towards you.

And it's back and forth like that.

This is from Olivia Wright.

Bit confused about these Paralympic categories.

How is someone with no legs equal

to someone with one leg?

So, I've got two prosthetic legs.

I'm the only female Paralympic snowboarder

with two prosthetic legs.

I'm racing against girls who have

one prosthetic leg above the knee.

It's not exactly fair, but they make it

as fair as they can.

Everybody's challenges are different,

so if you're an arm amputee, they'll put

arm amputees together.

If you're a below-the-knee leg amputee,

or below-the-knee leg impairment,

they put you together.

And if you're above-the-knee impairment,

or you've got two legs that are impaired,

they put you together.

So they really do the best that they can.

If anything, racing against girls who have their legs

and who have one good leg just motivates me

to train that much harder.

What kinds of terrain features do

Paralympic snowboarders face in snowboard cross events?

So, our snowboard cross event is the same

as the Olympic snowboard cross event.

We have berms, which are basically turns against the wall.

We've got jumps, we've got rollers, we're side by side.

So it's pretty much exactly like the other

snowboard cross you see, except, instead of having

four people side by side, we only have

two people side by side.

Which makes it that much more competitive.

Because you have to win every single race

you're in to advance.

Why is sled hockey not more popular?

It's actually amazing.

I'm not sure why it's not that popular.

It is amazing.

If you like hockey, you're gonna like sled hockey.

'Cause it's fast paced, hard-hitting, you know

we kinda joke that stand-up players got it a little easier.

They skate with their legs and then shoot with their arms.

We have to skate with our arms and shoot with our arms.

When you see a stand-up player get checked on the boards,

that top part of the boards flex,

well, that bottom part in sled hockey doesn't flex,

so we absorb all of that hit when you're

down there on the ice.

So, definitely a popular sport, and I can't wait

to see it get more popular.

Alright, so the first question is from A Graham-Merrett,

and they ask, In the guided skiing at the Paralympics,

do the guides get medals?

As a Paralympic ski racer, visually impaired ski racer,

it is a team sport.

In the able-bodied ski racing, it's one athlete.

In Paralympic visually impaired ski racing it's two.

So both athletes do receive a medal.

Visually impaired downhill skiing

at the Paralympics?

Surely that's just dangerous.

It's just crazy. (laughs)

You know, skiing could be classified as dangerous

for anybody, whether you have a disability or not.

And I feel as though visually impaired skiing is probably

just as safe as anybody going out there skiing on their own.

From Wayne C. Yang.

Cross-country skiing, sitting,

looks very exhausting.

It is.

How do they build up endurance?

The way you build up endurance actually goes way back

about two years, 'cause it takes about that time

to get your base up.

It's a lot of cross training,

so I do a lot of long hour rides,

a lot of long hour skis,

just going easy in your zone one and two.

Okay, this one's from Phil.

Wonder how many skiers qualify for Paralympics

through injuries sustained while skiing.

I didn't get my injury from skiing,

but I personally know so many guys

who do Alpine skiing, from getting injured

from Alpine skiing.

You know, when you truly love something,

you have a passion for it, it doesn't matter how you do it.

Just sometimes getting out and doing it is all that matters.

BellaDebay.

Who knew buying a snowboard was so difficult?

Come on, now, it's not that hard.

There's so many user guides and equipment reviews out there.

When I look for a snowboard, I'm looking for one

that's gonna be the right size,

the right width, and generally for the type

of snowboarding that I wanna do.

Back country, free ride, powder,

they're all sort of built into these different categories.

So it's best to think about what kind of snowboarding

you want to do and find the one

that fits that category best.

How does one get sponsored in snowboarding?

I think the key to getting sponsorship

is definitely reaching out, asking for what you need.

You know, whether you wanna compete, or just do filmmaking,

you just kinda have to get your name out there

and spread some love.

Chewbekah says, So, dot dot dot dot,

is it difficult to snowboard?

Yes.

No.

People are always like, skiing's easier to learn

but harder to get good at,

and snowboarding's hard to learn

but easier to get good at.

So I feel like once you get the basics down,

like the turning and stuff,

you'll be in the park in no time.

So there you go, you guys.

Thank you for watching Olympic Support.

I'm gonna take my figure skates and head outta here.