By Chris Cosci

Last Friday, people around the world watched the opening ceremony for the 19th Winter Olympic Games. The Winter Olympics may not feature as many events as the Summer Olympics - or as many athletes - but it has its own charm and unique competitions.

The Summer Olympics consists of mainly physical events of strength, speed and endurance. The Winter Olympics consists mainly of events invented by the criminally insane and performed by the masochistic. How else can you explain the luge and the ski jump? The biggest exception to this rule is curling, which was invented by the Committee for Games that Defy Explanation.

Watching the Winter Olympics, you keep waiting to see something happen that will replace the current "agony of defeat" clip as the most painful piece of sport footage ever recorded. Every sport has the potential for danger (the exception again being curling), even figure skating - especially pairs. You tell me you don't cringe in fear when the man spins his partner around with her head roughly a billionth of an inch away from the ice. I'll say you're lying through your teeth.

While there's plenty that can be said for the outrageous sports of the suicidal skeleton and the bizarre biathlon, one of the most heart-pounding events so far has been the men's downhill skiing. The event itself is not as insane as other events. In fact, skiing is one of the few events that I don't mind partaking in myself.

However, this year, the men's downhill course took place on a trail nicknamed "The Grizzly." The trail is so named because a normal skier would prefer being mauled by a grizzly bear than having to ski down it. The trail starts out with a 70-degree slope, allowing gravity to pull the skier down at a speed of up to 75 MPH. What follows is a series of sharp turns and steep slopes designed to inject pure fear into the heart of skiers.

The course also features four jumps, most notably the first one - the Flintlock Jump. Skiers launch off this jump and soar as far as 150 feet or more before having to deal with more twists and turns, that is assuming they somehow manage to land standing up.

Under normal conditions, I wouldn't consider this to be the most heart-pounding event. It certainly is challenging, but it needed a little something extra to take it over the edge. Anybody who has ever gone skiing knows that the most treacherous skiing conditions occur when the trail is icy. As it turns out, this suicidal trail is filled with icy patches - on purpose!

Yes, to make this path of peril even more dangerous (or "challenging" as the Olympic Committee calls it), they intentionally inject it with water to create an even harder and more slick surface.

I think any of these athletes who reach the finish line with both of their arms and legs still attached to their bodies should be given a medal. The medal can placed on all finishers - after they pass out in the snow.