Irish competitors Sean Greenwood and Jan Rossiter are in action today at Sochi.
The hopes of a nation rest on the shoulders of Sean Greenwood, who takes to the track in the skeleton competition at Sochi from 12.30PM this afternoon (Irish time).
Greenwood is a North Vancouver native who wears the tricolour speedsuit thanks to his mother Sibéal Foyle of Newcastle, Co Galway. He trains at Whistler, which hosted the sliding events at the 2010 Olympics. He took up the sport in 2008 after one too many shoulder injuries from rugby.
The Irish number one is ranked 21st of 26 in the competition, which will be four heats over two days. The top 20 racers will progress to heats three and four.
As we have already seen, skeleton is the national winter sport of Ireland, along with watching the English football in the pub, and freezing one's balls off in St Conleth's Park or similar.
At the other end of the adrenaline scale, Cork's Jan Rossiter (@oldmanJan) competed in the cross-country skiing 15K classic at 2.00PM local time. He finished 82nd.
Like Greenwood, Rossiter has a pretty cool and interesting personal website.
