The Winter Olympics in South Korea.

The Winter Olympics in South Korea.

So are we ready? Shortly the Winter Olympics of 2018 will usher in some of the most improbable, bizarre, sublime and ridiculous sights that sport has ever seen. We all know about the hallowed ideals of the Olympic movement. And yet the Winter Olympics has always been regarded as perhaps the less heralded of sporting tournaments. But this is the Winter Olympics and it's time to acknowledge the good, bad, not forgetting the most superlative in sporting excellence.

 For the next couple of weeks we'll be taken into the snow capped mountains of South Korea where huge crowds will gather on the steep slopes ready to cheer themselves silly as the skiers, the bobsleigh, figure skaters, ski jumpers, the slalom skiers, and all manner of daredevil athletes pit the wits against each other in one of the most thrilling and extraordinary spectacles sport can offer.

And yet once again sport's most discerning of observers will ring their cowbells, voices rising, as  fearless and intrepid men and women alike challenge themselves recklessly to overcome seemingly frighteningly daunting obstacles. Leaping into the air from the highest of heights, they fly off into the far distance, miracles of courage and agility, skiers par excellence.

 You do though begin to question their sanity and then realise that theirs is a whole hearted dedication to the cause of the highest order, the culmination of years and years of training, early mornings on the slopes, and a readiness to overcome some of the most demanding of all challenges.

For those of us with a limited knowledge of the Winter Olympics we can only marvel at the speed, control and indomitable spirit of our Olympic athletes. These are the daring sportsmen and women who risk life and limb, whose drive and ambition can never be doubted, whose devil - may - care bravado have to be acclaimed because there can be few who could even contemplate matching their remarkable accomplishments.

The truth is though that very few of us could imagine just how much sheer pluck, bravery and death defying heroism may be required to be one of the best skiers, the most enthralling of slalom skiers, sking sticks securely tucked under their arm pits, bodies poised and eager, crouching forward before exploding out onto the snow with the most blissful disregard of danger and fear. They fly down the slopes with quite the most aerodynamic of actions, eyes and goggles intensely focussed, models of grace, co-ordination and natural ability.

Then of course there are the disciplines to which the untrained eye defy description. Over the years we have applauded these incredible winter sportsmen and women, we have witnessed the valiant heroes, those who will never ever take sport seriously because essentially sport was all about the taking part. They love their sports and remain some of the most admirable and uncomplaining of all athletes.

There's the luge, the toboggan racers who take their life in their hands, sliding furiously around icy chutes at unreasonable speeds and with the kind of virile velocity of men and women without a single pang of anxiety on their minds. Then they hit those sharp hairpin bends, clinging on desperately for dear life and wondering why on earth anybody would want to carry out the nine to five routine of workaday routines. Then two bodies hold onto each other in some harmonious agreement where you close your eyes and hope that none will suffer lifelong injuries.

For some of us though the only abiding memory of the Winter Olympics had to be the 1984 games where one perfect couple stole our hearts and carved their names into Olympic folklore. By mid night in downtown Saravejo girl met boy and everything seemed to reveal itself in some fairy tale story that few of us could possibly have predicted. They were young, supple, flexible, easy on the eye and they came from Nottingham.

Christopher Dean had been one of the most exemplary policemen ever to appear on an Olympic skating rink. He was professionally polished, conscientious to his finger nails, supremely modest and the most picturesque of performers on an ice rink. Dean was tall, striking and as close to perfection as you would ever see. His wonderful interpretation of 'Bolero' with his partner Jayne Torvill for a few minutes of a Sarajevo night captured the hearts and minds of those who simply couldn't believe what they were watching.

Of course there was Jayne Torvill. Torvill was a happy, permanently smiling ice skater with huge quantities of charm and personality. Both Torvill and Dean not only became as well known as bread and butter but theirs was the kind of expressive ballet on ice that would have had the patrons of Sadlers Wells in rich bursts of rapturous applause. They swirled, whirled, spun and pirouetted round and round, fell dramatically to the floor at the most strategic of moments and then gestured with hands that told of a narrative that would always be remembered.

By the end of that Winter Olympics of 34 years ago, Britain blinked its sleepy, tired eyes and then it suddenly occurred to them that something had happened that would probably never be repeated again. Of course there was John Curry and Robin Cousins and their golden tales of derring do but here was Christopher Dean and Jayne Torvill, two minds ideally attuned to the Olympic dream, linking together almost telepathically, a perfect marriage of timing and precision, the most romantic pairing in Olympic history.

Another personal recollection takes me back to the mid 1970s when an Austrian downhill ski-ier named Franz Klammer broke so many Olympic records that he almost seemed to leave the rest of the field on another planet. Klammer was heroically dashing, one of the finest of down hill exponents the world had ever seen and never surpassed by any of his rivals or fierce competitors. When Klammer took off into the cold mountain air comparisons with birds could hardly be ignored. He jumped and then seemingly floated for so long and so effortlessly that when he eventually landed, it must have been assumed that air traffic control had just been cleared for this most formidable of ski-iers.

And so there you have it. The Winter Olympic Games of 2018 is about to be launched and in the crisp, invigorating air of a South Korean day, the ice hockey players, the skaters, the down hill and slalom skiers and those very well mannered curling folk will sweep their way into a thousand hearts.Some of course will win gold, silver and bronze but there will be some who came to participate in the Olympic Games because they just wanted to be there when it counts.

Several Winter Olympics ago a gentleman by the name of Eddie Edwards crept ever so quietly into the public consciousness. We knew nothing about Edwards because here in Britain skiers are not only unheard of they are almost completely unknown. If somebody had told us then what we know now about Britain's renowned sking prowess then some may well have been reduced to uncontrollable laughter.

But Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards did something that went beyond the call of duty, he broke the barriers, stunned a disbelieving nation, made light of the sneering cynics, proved a point and established himself as one of the greatest of under-rated sportsmen Britain had ever produced. He ski jumped in a way that none of us could possibly have imagined. Admittedly,  Edwards succeeded only jumping as far as the nearest pine tree but Edwards represented the essential Olympic spirit.

 He knew fully well that a gold, silver or bronze would never be his for the taking but he was engagingly funny, self mocking, humble and deeply determined to do his best and nothing more. Perhaps the Olympic movement needs more people like Edwards because Edwards at no point entertained doping scandals, never cheated the system and simply set out to be true to himself.

We all know that a summer Olympics is the one event on the sporting calendar that should always be celebrated. When the Olympic torch lights a flame it means that something unique has happened in sport. It means that once again that sport is good for the soul, lifts you triumphantly out of your seat and then gets you right there.

But here we at another Winter Olympics and it seems most of the world has travelled to South Korea by a cable car, booked a lofty chalet and then sensed that something significant is in the air. British Olympic skiiers are a rare commodity and if they should bring back a medal from their travels to the Far East then we may have cause to think back to a very late hour in Sarajevo when a couple called Torvill and Dean won a gold medal and we all went back to sleep euphorically delighted to know that it probably couldn't have gone any better than it did. Oh for those Olympic ideals.