Today's report is also a bit late, but at least I have a bit of an excuse. Yestaerday (feb 9) afternoon they asked for a bunch of crew workers to be ready to upload on gondola at 4 AM. The premise was that Feb 10 was first training run for men's downhill, there was a possibility of snow, and they wanted to make sure it could all be removed in time. It was not supposed to be a work day for me (BC Labour Law restricts number of consecutive "work" days (even as a volunteer) to 6), but since I am staying close to venue, and because I wanted to, my section chief arranged for me to be "allowed" to work. So with all of us in breakfast tent at 4:00 AM (yes, even at that time we had to go through security), chief of course came down to tell us there had been no snow, to just relax a bit. Two and a half hours later we uploaded, still too dark to see, so using headlamps we went up to our sections to get ready for training run. Only about an hour or so of work to tidy things up and ensure last minute security issues (racer safety) were done, then we stood and watched inspection, which I always enjoy: watching people who look larger than life on TV, in reality most look like young kids, and how each one has differeent way of inspecting the course. Most of rumors abut who does what during inspection are indeed true! Race started at 10:30 AM but numerous delays due to fog, snow, etc., and finally called off at 3 PM withnonly half of racers having had a chance to do their run. So a long day, pretty unsuccessful, with ots of pressure to get a training run in on the 11th to esnure they could run the race on Feb 13. Whistler folk seemed pretty despondent, as mountain has reputation for not being able to get speed events off on time due to weather. In comparison to some other sports, people have been working on setting downhill track ever since winter began, there are 2400 people in work force trying to make sure everything is as ready as possible, yet there is still no control over things like the weather, and only some control over snow conditions. Compare this to hockey. One man to drive one Zamboni before the game and between periods! Not sure what drives us to do all this, but athletes for the most part are very appreciative.
Inspecting first of two key gates coming off flats (Carousel) onto Weasel
Note multicolored pants of the Norwegian team (Svindal not in pic)
Many racers spent a good 15-20 minutes at this gate that leads onto Weasel, a steep pitch that is key to setting up speed for the next long portion of the race. The fellow in light lue jacket with white helmut just to left of centre is Gunther, the FIS-appointed referee. he together with assistant referee, Chief of Course, and Chief of Race for the jury, the group that makes final decisions about all major issues that may arise during the race. See Feb 11 blog for more about him.
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