Yesterday during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, ladies from around the world competed in the women’s short program figure skating. This involved strapping on shoes encumbered by sharp blades and leaping up over a solid sheet of ice. Terrifying, beautiful, courageous.
Check out these images of the women caught mid-jump — and often face-down — hovering above the rock-hard unforgiving frozen stage, while the whole world watches.
Akiko Suzuki of Japan
Kaetlyn Osmond of Canada
Natalie Weinzierl of Germany
Adelina Sotnikova of Russia
Eliaveta Ukolova of the Czech Republic
Park So-Youn of South Korea
Viktoria Helgesson of Sweden