Quote of the Day | 0212
speedskating competitions on television now all take place indoors, in controlled environments, on rinks of perfect ice, and in my homeland it has dwindled into a niche sport for nostalgic middle-aged and elderly men; people no longer gather around radios and television sets, no longer note down lap times; the tracks are no longer edged by grandstands packed with people from all walks of life. Speedskating has never been very popular outside the Netherlands and Norway, and the good skaters from the United States, Canada, Russia, Japan, China, Sweden and Finland have never felt the support of an entire people cheering them on, the way the Dutch and Norwegians have. But although the sport has become marginalized and streamlined in ways that have made it even less satisfying as a spectacle, it remains quite as abundant with tradition, beauty and excitement as ever. It is all there, in every race. All you have to do is look within.
Karl Ove Knausgard, The Hidden Drama of Speedskating
[x]#13767 fan maandag 12 februari 2018 @ 10:02:30
