Interesting facts about Team Estonia
08.02.2018
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08.02.2018
Some interesting facts about Team Estonia in PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games:
- Team Estonia has 22 athletes from 6 sports: alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping and speed skating.
- Out of the 22 athletes, twelve are making their Olympic debut. There are five athletes who are going to their second Olympic Games (all debuted in Sochi) and four athletes going to their third Olympics. For one athlete, PyeongChang is his fifth Olympic Games.
- The youngest athletes of Team Estonia are 17-year old alpine skier Tormis Laine and ski jumper Kevin Maltsev. Laine is the youngest by a month.
- Tormis Laine and Kevin Maltsev are the first athletes born in the 21st century to represent Estonia in the Olympic Games.
- The most senior of Team Estonia is biathlete Roland Lessing. The 39-year-old is competing in his fifth Olympic Games, having debuted in Salt Lake City in 2002.
- There are two brother-sister pairs in the team: biathletes Johanna Talihärm and Johan Talihärm and cross-country skiers Anette Veerpalu and Andreas Veerpalu. The latter two are the eldest children of two-time Olympic winner Andrus Veerpalu. This is also the first time in Estonian Olympic history that brother-sister pairs make it to the Winter Olympics.
- 2018 marks exactly 50 years from the last time that an Estonian speed skater competed in the Olympics. In PyeongChang, Estonia is represented by two speed skaters: Saskia Alusalu and Marten Liiv. Estonian Ants Antson was Olympic winner in Men's 1,500m in the Innsbruck 1964 Olympics.
