Olypmics and Knitting

The words - the Olympics and knitter - represent a juxtaposition to me. That is they represent ". . . two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect." An Olympic athlete is someone who is very active in pursuit of physical excellence. A knitter is generally not seen in the same physically active sense. So when these two terms came together in Olympic news over the weekend I knew I'd have to write about it. (Sue, thanks so much for this tip.)

Apparently, the Finnish Snowboarding coach, Antti Koskinen, used free time to knit at the top of the course. Talk about multitasking, you have a few moments to fill while your competitor waits to begin their "routine" so why not do something productive, like knit. As you can see at the moment this photo was taken there was less than a minute of time before the big show.

But this is not the end of the story, apparently the Finnish team is knitting this scarf to hand off to Finland's Summer Olympic team going to Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Another Finnish team member knitting

According to Wall Street Journal, the Finland Summer Olympic team will complete the scarf at their Summer games. It is unclear what will happen to the scarf after that. (You do have to love they are incorporating their patriotic colours in this scarf.)

The idea for Koskinen, the coach, to work on the scarf at the starting gate was that of Finnish snowboarder Roope Tonteri, who finished 11th in Saturday's competition. "I think that it looks really weird, so it's kind of funny," Tonteri said. "Everybody just thinks, 'What's he doing?'"

Last year I wrote about Politics and Knitting in Australia and this year, the Olympics and knitting in Russia. This knitting thing is taking over, right? Well perhaps only in my mind. You do have to give it to Tonteri, he is right, it does look really weird.

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