Kicker: An icy irony

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Most of us spend winter trying not to fall down.

Rich Ruohonen makes a living off the ones who do. 

He’s a personal-injury attorney — slip-and-fall cases, oh yeah!

Now, he’s an alternate on the U.S. Olympic curling team.

The Wall Street Journal had some fun with that — a 51-year-old lawyer who could become the oldest American Winter Olympian… but only if a teammate, you know, slips and falls.

But here’s the thing about curling.

You strap a slick slider onto one shoe, and deliberately launch yourself across a sheet of ice, pushing a 44-pound granite stone.

Now Ruohonen gets the humor of his situation. But he’s also honored to be there.

AUDIO: What the Olympics means is excellence, respect, friendship.

And that’s the twist: A man whose day job revolves around accidents, drawn to a sport where the whole point is precision.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

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