Gold in the Downhill!

Wednesday morning and Day number 5 in Whistler Village, being surrounded by all of what the Olympics represent. It's been such a great time. But there is the other side of it. This morning, there was a leak in my bathroom in the trailer. Also, there was so much condensation on the windows that they were beginning to drip in places. This is likely due to the combination of warmth of the inside in contact with the near freezing temperatures outside, plus I had washed a few clothes in the trailer because there is not a laudromat nearby.

Fortunately, it was a beautiful morning. with blue skies and very little breeze. I opened up all of the windows, despite the cold temperatures, and wiped down everything that was wet. It didn't take long for everything to be dry again. I inspected the leak in the bathroom, and determined that I thought it would hold because it might have actually been condensation. But it is something I will have to watch closely. It would be, well, in a word, "bad" if the trailer sprung a leak that was unrecoverable. It would make living here be quite challenging. So, watch it, I will.

I took my usual walk into the village, and timed it this time. I thought it was about 15 minutes, but it is actually less than that and I don't want to miss a single run of the women's downhill today! Today it took 7 minutes because the woamen's downhill is starting at 11:00 this morning and I didn't want to miss a run. I don't have a ticket, but I know I can go into the village and watch the whole thing with others on the big screen in the village.

It's really fun to watch what's going on from the village. Today while watching, there were a couple of the men's teams, and some of the men's US Ski Team coaches and some Weasels either watching or coming down after training on the hill. Since you cannot ride the gondola up at Creekside, anyone who is training, trains on the Blackcomb side, and finish their runs right at the Big Screen.

As each racer on the big screen came down, there would be more coaches and racers gathering to watch. Men with gate keys that look like large T-squares, people with gates hoisted onto their shoulders and the faces of mostly men, who look like they have spent a great deal of time in the mountains. Tan, bright eyes, intensity, and really cool Olympic outfits. I am used to seeing the race crew dressed as if they work hard in their clothing. For the time being, even the gate grunts are dressed beautifully. They match the team colors but carry a ton of gear so you can distinguish them from the racers.

Also, at the bottom of the hill are many other spectators. This morning I am near a Canadian couple who don't know much about the downhill, and asked questions about it. When Goergl came down the hill, she had the "tightest" stance and best line, and it was easy to tell from my vantage point that she was going to have the fastest time, until Julia Mancuso came down. I'm always hesitant, since I am by myself, and American, if I should yell too loud and fear being pounded on by someone who does not want to see the Americans do well (and there are some of those here). But, I yelled anyway. Woo HOO!! Luckily, I can hear other USA proponents yelling too, thank goodness and don't care at the moment if someone doesn't like it. The Canadians next to me do nothing. But, they did smile at me, which was nice.

The downhill course is very bumpy and hard today. On the big screen, you can see the racer's getting bumped and bounced all over the place. There are those racers who take a more conservative approach and instead of staying in a tight tuck, they open up their stance and ski a bit wider on the course. I can tell by looking, and have experienced it myself, that when a course is hard and bumpy and has a lot of complexity to it, that you "ski" it more than "race" it. This is what it looks like for some of the racers.

It is Lindsey Vonn's turn. She is in the gate and ready to run. She is such a smooth and powerful skier. She has grace and strength, and has very little ineffective movements. She comes out of the gate clean and strong. As graceful and powerful as she is, this course takes it's toll. I have watched her race numerous times now, and felt that she was knocked around a bit more than she normally is. This speaks to the difficulty of this course. As she nears the bottom, she bobbles on the last knoll, and quickly drops into that compact tuck, and is more than half a second ahead of Julia Mancuso, her teammate at the end, in first place. But there are great racers coming behind her. Cheers go up in the crowd and the noise just isn't from the Americans. Lindsey is clearly an incredible downhill racer and at the end of the course she falls down and lays in the snow for awhile, as if savoring the time, or just pleased she is intact after such a rough course.

A few more racers go down the hill, and no one is close to Lindsey or Julia's times. There is a crash on the course. In fact, the first racer to go, crashes. This is no ordinary course.

Anja Paerson comes into the starting gate. She is a Swede who has a lot of experience, and who can put it all together at a race like this. She is a bigger racer with quadriceps that won't quit and an eye for the course. She crashes through the starting wand and sets out in a tuck. At the split time, she is only slightly slower than Lindsey. It's almost even. From the screen, it looks like she pours it on. It's possible that Lindsey will be dethroned on this run. You can tell that Anja wants this race. This is the Olympics and she is not going to hold back. On the last knoll, where Lindsey had bobbled, Anja gets a little bit back on her heels and is slightly on a left booted turn, and suddenly she is airborne, launching into the air like the men on the ski jump. You can see her in the air trying to maintain some kind of balance where she can land this monstrosity, but she cannot. She lands off balance, then takes out one of the gates, which spins her around like a helicopter blade, and the race is over for her. There is a picture of Lindsey on the screen who has to cover her face. These racers spend so much time together on the road, that even if they are not the best of friends, they know each other. I can only imagine what it would feel like to see such a crash by a colleague like this. Anja is able to walk out of the finish area, but has to sit a couple of times along the way. She disappears into the athlete's sporting area and away from the crowds.

There is now only one contender left who can even slightly come close to Lindsey's times, and that is Maria Reisch, who I saw on the bus earlier in the week. The skiers who come between Anja and Maria are 2-3 seconds behind Lindsey. Maria comes out of the gate. The crash with Anja must have shook her up because she didn't look the fierce competitor that she has been this year. This course has taken it's toll. Anja's crash was the third. Maria looked conservative as she skied. At the split time she was well behind Lindsey and there really wasn't any way should could close the gap with the course the way it was running. Maria came through the finish well behind Lindsey. I can only imagine what it would be like from Lindsey's shoes. She and Maria are good friends. The story around here is that the two share chocolate milk together the night before a race to talk and relax. This must have been such a bittersweet ending.

A few skiers after Maria comes Edith Miklos from Romania. She is nearly halfway down, and she catches an edge, does the split and rips through a gate causing her to crash into the b-netting. It takes all three rows of netting to stop her, and when she stops, she doesn't move. Whenever I see something like this, it makes my stomach hurt. There she is laying against the final tier of the b-netting, and she is not moving. During the crash her ski twists off and helicopters around so fiercely that I just hope the ski released before it made the rotations. But it is hard to tell. The downhill is stopped as Edith is airlifted away.

Because I had to work, I couldn't stay at the big screen for the course hold, and went up the gondola to the Sliding Centre. I heard later that Edith is okay, but wonder. The media hasn't talked much about her crash. It didn't look good.

At the top of the hill, I check into my workforce tent, and the TV is on. I meet with my workmates, and discuss the day. For about 30 minutes, I didn't hear the final results of the downhill, but suspected Lindsey had won since there were only about 6 skiers left after the course hold, and none of them had been contenders for the downhill before. Soon, I heard the final, and couldn't believe that the US had the gold and the silver!! Whoo Hoo!!

Work goes through periods of intensity with moments of absolutely nothing going on. This is good, though, because there is Olympic coverage on CTV and it is right next to me. NBC could learn a lot about broadcasting the Olympics. They are only slightly Canadian biased and bring the whole competition rather than only the American contenders (or Canadians in this case). Today, we watched the 1000 meter short track speed skating, the men's halfpipe where Shaun White absolutely nails his runs. He is distinguishable from the rest of the field because of the hang time he has and the tricks he does. It amazes me how much airtime he gets in such a short time. People gather around to watch. We are also positioned next to where all of the security personnel check in. They stop by to watch and there is a lot of activity around our television.

An interesting story unfolded today regarding security. Apparently, an unmarked RCMP walked through security with a gun on him. It was not picked up by the "mag and bag" crew at a different venue than ours. Security let him right through the checkpoint. There is a zero tolerance policy around weapons, as you can well imagine and the entire security crew that let him through were fired on the spot. No one is messing around here. The security staff here at our venue were on their toes today with a seriousness that I hadn't quite seen before. The security crew chief who holds down the check in point next to us is a great big guy with a moustache and a big voice. He paces around with his headset while his crew is outside checking in spectators. I wouldn't want him mad at me, ever.

Today on CTV they played the 5000 Meter short track speed skating relay. Have you ever seen this? It is incredible. There are 4 racers who rip around the track with their left arm touching the inside of the track. After 2 laps, 4 more guys start skating next to them, cut in to the current racers in front of their teammate, and they are pushed or literally heaved forward for the next 2 laps. There is a third set of skaters preparing for the next round of skate, cut in and push. It is fast, it is confusing and a blast to watch. This race continues for 5000 meters. It is amazing to watch. A crowd gathered to watch and comment.

At my venue, it is the double men's luge today. Around the campus, I heard many comments about one man riding on top of another. Most of them I don't really want to repeat. Because it is so busy in the tent at the time of the race, I really couldn't get away to go up to the venue. However, in our breakroom is a live camera feed where you can watch all the runs. It is the same feed that is shown up on the bigscreen in the finish area. There isn't any commentary but you can tell by their times and their names what is going on. During my dinner of veal parmignon, broccoli, potatoes and butternut squash soup,

I watch the luge, and strike up a conversation with a nurse who works the venue who was there when Nodar died. She stated that they knew the outcome but had to intubate him and go through all of the emergency medical responses until he was "called". If you are squeamish, don't read this next sentence. She said his spine was completely gone. Mostly there is a light air around here, but the mood shifts when talking about what happened last friday. I think the rawness has started to wear off, and some people are talking a bit. But for some, they may never been able to talk much about it. There is a bit of a post traumatic stress syndrome going on. Our grief counselors are still working, and in fact, worked more yesterday than they had for a couple of days.

At the end of the day, I ride the gondola down. I love riding the gondola down at night. The lights are glittering, you can hear music playing at a distance, and at the same time it is peaceful and quiet. It is nice to transition from work to play like this. I wish my commute at home was in a gondola and not in my car on I-5. Wouldn't that be awesome?

At the bottom of the hill, above the Big Screen where I watched the downhill, there are Olympic rings that are lit on fire. There is music playing, and one after the other, skiers and snowboarders are doing flips through the rings. First they play one of those songs that is rock and roll with screaming, which is not my favorite, and then they play "Eye of the Tiger", the Rocky song. Now, this is music! I can actually enjoy it without cringing. Do I sound like my parents or what? The flippers get to the bottom of the hill and a snowmobile with a tow on the back pulls them back up the hill to do it again. There are about 12-15 flippers going up the hill to go through again. Some of them crash, but most of them don't. The spectators are dancing and singing, and waving flags, Norwegian, Swiss, US, Canadian, French, Italian. They are all here, and have the common interest of dancing and swaying and watching. Everyone is so well behaved. There is not the drunkeness I have seen at Whistler in the past. I'm sure there is some drunkeness around somewhere, but this just seems like good clean fun, and I love it.

It is late and time for me to take my evening walk home to the trailer. Tonight is a beautiful night. The stars are out twinkling against a dark royal blue sky. It seems they illuminate the snow on the mountains around my little home. It is crisp and cold but my breath keeps me warm as I walk while looking around at the beauty around this mountain. It doesn't always look this way so I take some time to savor in it's loveliness.

Rod and I text during the walk and I hope that when I get back, there is not water all over the place. Thankfully, the place was dry, and the condensation had not started back up again in by absence for the 12 hours I was gone. I called Rod on Skype and we chatted about the day, and thought through what our next steps would be for the leaks. Besides, it's just nice to talk to him. I had talked to my daughter, Tia, on Skype before I left in the morning. If you haven't used it before, it is pretty neat. You can see a video of the person you are talking to. The picture quality isn't fabulous, but it is still nice to connect in this way when you are in different countries.

It is time for bed again, and I crawl into my feathers and fall fast asleep again.