Atlantica - 01.06.2006, Page 46

experiencing is apparently three to four times my bodyweight. Feels more
like a bulldozer, or ten.
We hit the braking straightaway and go from 65 mph to zero in 345
meters, roughly three FIFA field lengths. Our final time: 70.62 seconds. Not
great, but not bad either. The average wheelbob course time (with tourists)
is somewhere between 65 and 70 seconds, depending on weight. The heavier
the sled, the faster; technically five people fit into a wheelbob but we only
had four. By comparison, the aggregate winning time for the men’s four-
man bobsled in the 1994 Olympic Winter Games, held on the same course,
was 3:27.78. Divide that by four runs and you get an average speed of 51.95
seconds.
“This was a lot scarier than a rollercoaster,” McGlynn tells me as we walk
– a little woozy – back to the parking lot. “It seems like this would never
happen in America. Way too many regulations or something.” Which made
me realize that I was never asked to sign a waiver.
BASE CAMP
I’m past my athletic prime and chances are slim I’ll ever become an Olympic
athlete, but at least I can pretend for a weekend.
There certainly wasn’t an Olympic flame signaling the beginning of my
mini-Olympic tour through Norway. There were no press conferences, coach-
es or fans, and definitely no henchmen trying to club me in the knee. Plus the
home base for my Olympic weekend was in Oslo, not Lillehammer.
I’d been to Norway before, but it was a couple of years ago, and I spent
most of it in the area around Bergen, the country’s second largest city and
gateway to the tens of bobby pin-like fjords that sculpt its southwestern
coast. I wanted to spend some time this visit getting to know Oslo, a city of
540,000 people with a notoriously staid – not to mention expensive – reputa-
tion.
AT L A N T I CA 45
OSLO a
Swooooooshhhhhh.
We hammer the
third, fourth,
fifth curves.
Tikatikatikatika
sound the wheels.
Vigeland Park, Oslo.
Lillehammer Olympic Bobsleigh and Luge Track.
Grünerlokka, Oslo.
042-48OsloAtl406.indd 45 23.6.2006 12:21:47