The world has come to Vancouver as the Winter Olympics are under way.

I usually just sit back and cheer for the Americans, but I have a different rooting interest this time around.

I traveled to Vancouver for work last November and shared a plane back with a bunch of athletes from around the world who will compete in bobsled, luge and skeleton over the next few weeks. In fact, I was one of the few people on the plane who did not voluntarily hurtle themselves down a sheet of ice for a living.

About five years ago, as we prepared for the last Winter Olympics, I wrote a column about how I thought I would fit in perfectly on the bobsled team. The only problem was that the guys who usually did that sort of thing were world-class athletes.

I learned that lesson that first-hand on the plane that day. I sat next to a burly Latvian who made it pretty clear he wanted a quiet ride from Vancouver to Salt Lake. He looked way more like a bobsledder than I did. Same principle applies to the skeleton racer from New Zealand across the aisle.

I now realize I may have flown with Nodar Kumaritashvili, the luger from Georgia killed earlier this week. Most of the athletes were from former Soviet republics so it’s highly likely he was there. That made the accident even more sad to me.

I got the message pretty clearly. Even though I would have the benefit of gravity like them, I couldn’t just waltz in and compete in the Olympics. I accepted the death of my dream with grace.

So I will have some new interest in those events other than trying to figure out which team could use me on their team if I could finagle new citizenship. Even though you would think suiting up for New Zealand in skeleton is some kind of joke, that’s not the case.

These kind of little discoveries make the Olympics so interesting to me. The broadcasts give people an opportunity to learn so many new things, like how Estonia is actually a former part of the Soviet Union and not a country founded by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

Just think how only a decade or so ago, pretty much none of us knew a thing about curling. We had never seen the sport and laughed at the odd sight of players scrubbing the ice in front of a rock that someone pushed toward the target.

Now, we marvel at the precision of the players while laughing at the odd sight of players scrubbing the ice in front of a rock that someone pushed toward the target.

Unfortunately, I didn’t fly with anyone on the curling team. At least I don’t think I did because I wouldn’t recognize a curler from a courier.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll try to change that as I learn more and more about the athletes competing in the Olympics. I will be front and center when the bobsled, luge and skeleton races take place so I can see if my Latvian friend takes home the gold.

I still don’t know if I will try to talk to him on the plane though if we run into each other again. He looked pretty mean.