The Downhill

The downhill. Ominous, unpredictable, terrifying, full tilt, spectacular. I’ve always wanted to see the downhill. Today, I saw it. The lines were long, but, as with Disneyland, you keep moving. There is very little stoppage time while in line to ride the Whistler Gondola from the village.

Once on board the gondola, I ride up with a family of 4 where the dad is bribing his 5 year old son with skittles. The parents are fun and the kids are cute, which makes the ride a bit more pleasant. However, the other couple on board looked like they had just been in a fight. She hands him her poles to hold for her, while scowling, he says no, and then she stands up in the gondola and turns her back on him, and they speak nothing to each other the entire ride up. With her back to him (everyone else is sitting) I can see her expression, and it doesn’t look happy. I decide I would rather focus on the cute little boys and their parents and the skittles.

We get to the top of the hill, and I look over the map for the viewing of the downhill. It is nearly 10:30 and time for the race to begin. I realize that I might be a bit late off the mark, but had a fairly relaxing morning, which I needed. I follow the map down Orange Peel, and come upon the start of the downhill. The final forerunner has just left the gate, and the racers are ready.

The weather is broken clouds and a very comfortable mountain temperature. The snow is firm, just right for the downhill. I can’t believe I am here! There are people scattered all over the hill, but the vantage point is actually quite good despite the crowds. From where I stand I can see about 8-9 gates, and a couple of them are rollers so the athletes catch air. It is amazing!! The start is just a straight shot down the hill, in a tuck. When watching on TV, it really doesn’t give the depth and steepness of the terrain. This is not a course for the faint of heart. I love tough terrain, but I have to say, this one is…let’s see, what’s the word? Oh yes….GNARLY.

I position myself to get a few shots of with my daughter’s camera. It is encased in pink, and very cute, but it doesn’t zoom. I am still able to get some shots off. I hear chanting in the crowd, “Bode, Bode, Bode,” and I know this can only mean one thing. Bode Miller is in the gate, and yes, I can see him…there he is waiting for the start. It seems a bit longer from the last racer to his start. He gets into position to run behind the starting wand, then pulls back, gets into position, and then pulls back, and then they are ready. Beep, Beep, Beep, Beeeeeep….and with all of his might, Bode powerfully accelerates out of the gate and immediately gets into a very tight tuck. It is tighter than the first couple of racers. As he goes through the first turn and the whoop de dos (my term for those rollers that are good for catching air) he stays tightly packed in a disciplined tuck. Except for one Bode flair (my term for when Bode looks like he is going to crash because his arms start to flail), Bode is tightly pulled in to himself leaving very little wind resistance. I think to myself, if he looks like this down the rest of the course, he has a good medal chance. He disappears over the hill, and he is gone…

I watch a few more racers, and decide to see what the course looks like below. There are many others who have the exact same idea. There are police and security on the narrow pathways along the race course, telling people to take their time and go slowly. There really isn’t any other choice but to go slowly with the number of people. The hill is not a beginner hill, but there are beginners on it to watch the downhill. This is a very interesting combination. There are racers, parents, kids, boarders, volunteers and experts to novice all trying to go through a trail that is 15 yards across….The snow has turned into “sugar” and difficult to get through. But eventually I break loose and see the course again.

I find another spot at the 6th gate. I email Rod from the hill “I’m at the 6th gate“, but the TV camera is pointing the other direction. This is in response to him telling me that some of his coworkers are watching live, and he wanted to know if they could see me on TV. I don’t think I was ever in view, thankfully. It would be hard to spot anyone in the crowd anyway, since there were so many of us.

At my next stop, I stand next to a family from Lake Tahoe, CA. They are there specifically to watch Marcos Sullivan a 27 or 28 year old racer who this would be his last hurrah on the US Ski Team. The man tells me that 10 years earlier, Marcos had worked for him at his contracting business. The man knew that Marcos was a hopeful for the Olympics as a young ski racer.

One day, he saw Marcos on a rooftop walking around without gear. He yelled at him to get off because he didn’t want to be responsible for wrecking his dreams of being on the Olympic team. With a twinkle in his eye, he said, “and look what happened”. He and his wife said they came to the Olympics to specifically see him run.

While the racers were running one after the other, the daughters from Lake Tahoe were making a snow sculpture. Every once in a while, when they ran out of “fluffy” snow, and I would take my ski and chop away more snow for them to use to build their structure. It eventually became a chair with a high reclining back and a foot rest which both of them took turns sitting in. It was quite cute. Everyone has something to do during the downhill….

Finally, it was time for Marcos to come down the hill and the whole family stood and focused on his run intent on taking in every part of it. Right in front of us was a bit of a whoop de do where many racers catch a bit of air. Marcos is no exception. His own parents couldn’t have been more proud. They had grins as big as you can get…..After a couple of more racers went through, they were off to see Marcos at the bottom of the hill. I love the stories here.

After awhile, I decided to move down the hill, also, because we had been standing in a fairly flat section. I wanted to see what is was like on a steeper pitch where speeds hit their max. So, down the hill I went again, and stopped at the “Weasel”. This is a steep narrow pitch, that has 4 gates through it. It is a place where speed is born. Those who ramp up the amperage on this part of the face, will have it pay off down the road. By the time I get there, most of the fastest skiers have come down the Weasel. This is an area where an radio is playing, and I hear that Bode is in third behind a Swiss and a Norwegian. There is another boom camera in front of me and as the skiers come down, the camera swings around rotates, and follows the skier down. There is a woman standing near the corner with a microphone and she points it at the skier’s feet when they go by. The Swiss are waving flags all over the place and have their faces painted, and the spectators have on matching red jackets….all over the hill. Everywhere….They are the red team…..and it’s fun to see their unequaled enthusiasm.

The final racer came down the course and the downhill is over. WOW….what an exciting experience. I skied down to the bottom of the Garbonzo chair, and loaded with a couple of volunteer slippers. They are the crew who slip the course to maintain it’s smoothness and take out any dangerous bumps or degradation to the course as skier’s go through. At the speeds these men are going, and the sharpness of their skis, it is understandable that they could create damage to the snow for the next racer. To keep things as safe as possible for people doing dangerous things, the slippers have specific jobs at specific times. After the racer goes by, they go out and slip to the next “station” which is 4-8 gates depending on the pitch and complexity of the course. They pull out of the course well out of sight of the next racer. There can be no distractions on the course. They are wearing volunteer coats just like mine, but they have on purple bibs with “Slippers” printed on them with a number. Talking to the crew chiefs after the race, (I’ll take about this more later), if a slipper makes a mistake, and makes the course look worse, or creates any damage, or cannot get off the course quick enough they are “yanked” off the course and told to go home. There is no room for mistakes here. Yikes….These young slippers were Canadian racers and hopefuls for the next Olympics in Russia.

After the race, and after skiing awhile, I went back down to the village and watch the final heats of the boarder cross, where Seth Wescott won the gold medal after coming from behind to inch out Canadian hopeful Mike Robertson. There was some friendly bantering going on with the young men standing next to me. They saw my US Ski Team gloves, and my pack which says US National Masters Championships and a US Ski Team emblem on it. So, I was spotted, and there were funny comments about the Canadians kicking our US “butts”, and then they would look over at me to see if I was going to respond. It was actually quite funny.

In the midst of this was a 4 year old boy who was eyeballing a really big icy puddle that had formed in front of us. He put his little mitted hands in the icy puddle (brrr) and pulled out a really big (for him) piece of slushy ice. With all of his little might, he threw the chunk into the water and splashed the big Canadian boys. It was amazing how much water splashed out of the puddle by this little tiny guy. The little guy didn’t even see that he had given the boys a shower. The women next to me on the other side were looking around for the child’s mother, and the boys started snickering and pointing at him. One of them told him he was going to call the police. The little guy was oblivious and didn’t quite understand what was going on. Suddenly, the instructor (or his mother, hard to tell) who was in charge of him, turned to the crowd and said, “he’s all yours now, I’ve had enough of him”, and she walked off. The little boy looked up and followed her wherever she was going. Interesting, eh? Seeing that a “responsible” adult had him in her care, I just watched them go….There were more snickers that followed while he was leaving. He clearly needed new mittens.

After that I walked through the village to see what was going on. While I was strolling through the village, I saw the CTV kiosk where they were replaying the downhill. I stopped to watch for awhile. The nice thing about TV is that they show the whole course. When you are on site, you only see your section of the race. While fascinating to be there, it is also interesting to watch the whole run on TV, so watch I did.

Suddenly, there were security pushing everyone aside while Manny was ushered to the stage. Manuel Osborne-Paradis (Manny) was a top contender for Canada, but didn’t have his best day. He finished 17th. This was where CTV televises their interviews with athletes up here. And, there I was, in the middle of the crowd, front and center. By this time, even if I had wanted to leave, too many people had gathered for me to go. I was carting my skis, ski boots and a pack, so needed a lot of room to move. So, I was essentially stuck front and center right behind Manny so that the cameras could focus with me in the background. I had on my Fuxi racing plaid chartreuse ski cap on and I tried to hide it behind Manny but he would move, and there I would be in my hat again (the monitors showed what was being telecast). This interview will be seen in Canada, but not the US, I don’t think, so I think I’m safe!

After the interview, I made contact with one of my fellow racers, Jim Doudna, who is on crew for the women’s alpine events. He has been working the women’s training run all day. He had asked Rod and I to come to the Weasel Club tent with him prior to Rod’s departure, but I had to work too much to participate. However, I was off, and decided to go. So what is the Weasel Club, you might ask? It is a club for people who put on ski races. Not just any ski races, but the Olympics, the World Cup and the big races at Lake Louise every year. This is a crew of people who have in depth knowledge of what it is like to pull off a safe and effective, chiseled program, and they have it down to a “T”. When walking into the tent, Jim introduced me to crew chiefs who have been in the business for 30 years. They build a tent on a double tennis court and meet every night between 4 and 7. It is mostly to celebrate the work they have done each day, and to prepare for the next day.

The work of running a downhill, or other races, is serious business. There are GPS units to survey gate placement, b-netting that must be set up appropriately with connectors in the right places so as not to injure an athlete is he or she is unfortunate enough to crash into one. The b-netting is laid in 3 tiers along the perimeter of the course so that as the racer crashes through each tier, they are slowed down by the next so that by the third row, they have hopefully stopped. The first tier has a sort of sheath on it so the skier can actually ski along the netting if they ski a bit too wide. A racer in the World Cup this year skied up onto the b-netting like he was going up the half pipe, skied out of it and finished the race. He would later say that he took that turn a little too wide. His times were not very good. You can’t make mistakes like that on the World Cup. But all of his limbs are intact, and this is due to materials on the b-netting that allow for this kind of racer mistake.

Each downhill is set up exactly the same way, with the gates in the same place within a metre. In the evenings, the gates are pulled out of the snow (they are screwed into the snow with a “key” and screwed out in the same manner). Since conditions change overnight with either snow or rain or freezing temps, the gates can be either buried or impossible to remove from the hill if they stay in overnight so they must be pulled. In the morning they must reset exactly where they were the day before, and the racers depend on this. They use b-netting as a guide (as long as no one pulls the b-netting, which happened this week). But, they have back up systems for back up systems in case they have weather related or human related mistakes. Jim was to reset a gate the next morning for the women‘s downhill, and had the schematics written on his hand as to not forget. The gate was to be set a few metres from an orange and black bamboo pole, and he knew exactly how to measure it out. Fascinating.

There was a lot of talk about courses and settings and other stories. But this group of people are putting on races, and are very focused on what needs to happen. But that wasn’t all that was being discussed. One of the young men was trying to figure out what to do with his relationships, and asked me for my advice. I think I might have had my glasses on where I look over the top of them and look like a counselor or something. This happens sometimes. I think I have a stamp on my forehead that says, “talk to me about your problems, and I will listen” So, I gave my best advice which usually centers around being honorable and honest in all you do, and be accountable. I don’t know if that is what he wanted to hear. But it was my best shot.

The Weasels have announcements over the PA. They start with “my name is __________ and I am a Weasel” after the alcoholics anonymous meetings. The crowd cheers, and the announcement is made. What I gathered is that the PA system is in place to make sure everyone knows what is happening, and to keep things moving the right direction for the next race. The people in the room are former racers, but many of them are not former racers. They are like course engineers with solutions for issues that come from a lifetime of putting on races. There is much more thought that goes into course work than I ever knew. The work that goes into the course is remarkable for the time actually spent on a course for a racer, which is 54-60 seconds. Unbelievable.

During the training runs on the women’s downhill, Jim had been on his hands and knees on the course, filling in chunks of ice and ruts that were made by a passing racer. Sometimes the snow is rutted and little ball bearing like conditions occur. This must be taken out of the course, and there are people who are experts at repairing these marks. Jim is one of them. Because racers are running, one must be able to identify the problem, evaluated quickly what the fix is, and fix it before the next racer. This is a well oiled machine. When the masters are racing, we get chunks and ruts, and just have to absorb it or slow down. This whole system amazes me.

There were also other fellow racers there who are in the Weasel tent. Franklin Bradshaw with whom I’ve raced with for 5 years is working women’s slalom and they may need slippers for the race. I don’t know if I will get a call, but am credentialed to do so, if chance should be on my side. However, I don’t want to be one of the ones they yank off the course and send home.

There are tickets available still for events at the Olympics. They were handing out tickets to the Victory ceremony for Bode tonight, and for the men’s mogul champions. So we hopped on the bus and went back up to the village to see Bode Miller. Afterward, we went to dinner and ran into another fellow racer, Sarah Peshkin, and her neighbor Christine. It is fun up here and so many people from our area. After dinner, I grabbed all of my belongings I had my skis, boots, poles and backpack filled with coats, extra gear etc, and walked home. Ahhhhh…….what a great day!