Women's Super G and hiking

Saturday morning, we hop in the truck, and hightail it down to Creekside to see if there are any tickets left for the women’s super G. There were tickets left, for a significant fee, and I paid for Rod, Nate and I to watch the super G today. We purchased grandstand tickets. The other option was to purchase standing tickets, which are more near the finish area, but if you were halfway back there really wouldn’t be any way for me to see over all of the waving flags, large hats, etc.

We drive back up to the trailer, grab breakfast and Nate, and walk to the bus.

Getting to an event is time consuming. The way to do it is to first of all, find the right bus stop with a bus going to the place you want to go. Check. Catch the bus next to the Cascade Lodge and take either the 1, the 10 or the 20. They are relatively well marked. Upon entering the bus, you must show either your tickets to an event (then your bus fare is free), show your credentials (free again), or if you have neither of those, you pay $2.00 to ride.

When you get onto the bus, you may be either seated, or standing. Either way, you will likely be in physical contact with someone, and likely someone who isn’t speaking English. This part I like. The atmosphere on the bus is happy and exciting. People are excited to go see more international athletes make a go of it on behalf of their country. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced so many days of people around who are all in good spirits. There are very few cranky people around.

We got off the bus in a residential area, and walked downhill to the entry of the venue which was about ¼ of a mile. The next step was security. Before you show your tickets, there is a “mag and bag” team ready to scan you. Nate and I go through, and wait. They have detained Rod, and he is getting “the wand” His jacket has metal buttons on it, and the machine beeps every time the “wand” encounters one. His watch also creates more beeping. Rod patiently waited while being scanned, and after scanning and rescanning all of him, they free him up and say, “have a nice time”. But, Rod was not unhappy, and I haven’t seen others be unhappy either about this. It is my sense that no one wants a security crisis, or anyone to get through with a weapon of any kind…so this is okay.

More walking downhill on a gravel path. This venue is not for wheelchairs or for anyone with a heart condition, or with bad arthritis. It is hilly and graveling, and we find ourselves having to walk very carefully as to not slide and fall. There is also ice on the gravel which compounds traction issues. We make it down the hill to where our tickets are scanned. Here at the Olympics, they do not take your ticket. They merely scan it, and it becomes a keepsake to put someplace special. I’m glad they do this. The ticket is intact and placed safely until we get home.

The next step after scanning is to get into another line to get onto the chairlift that was designed to move people during the Olympics, up to the grandstands and finish area. Running parallel is the gondola the athletes and coaches are riding. We peek in the windows of the gondola and see athletes in there but don’t recognize the faces. Their Super G skis are loaded on the outside so you can see what they are skiing on, but not who is skiing on them. We ride the chairlift with a man who has an Olympic Team USA coat, who is very friendly and excited about all that is happening with the US Ski Team during these Olympics.

At the top, you get off the chairlift. For a second, I forget that I am NOT on skis, and put my feet down as if there were skis on them…but immediately realize I have hiking boots on and it is not a good mix….so I quickly take a bunch of steps to clear the chairlift, and hope no one sees this little problem. I was actually pleased that I didn’t crash. That would have been very embarrassing.

We get off the chairlift, and have to hike a bit more to the grandstand. There is a food and beverage stand, and a retail store to lighten your wallet, and we walk right past to get to our seats. It is really cold out since the sun has not come over the mountains, yet. We have triple layers on, hats and eventually buy cocoa and coffee to warm our insides until the sun comes out and we can see it coming over the hill. Right before the beginning of the race, the sun comes up over the hill, and it feels like the warmth of it instantly thaws the freezing temperatures. It feels great, and it isn’t long before the hats come off, and the sunglasses on.

It is time for the race to begin.

Julia Mancuso is the first one out of the gate and the crowd cheers. There are people cheering for Julia, and people cheering because it is the beginning of the Super G. In this race, there is only one run. It is do or die. Everything is riding on this one moment time that lasts slightly more than a minute. Years of training, the early mornings, the gates, the coaches giving feedback, the giving up of personal time, to spent a little more than a minute of your time trying to be the best. The US Olympians have the mental toughness it takes this year, to pull it together in one place and be in the moment. Julia rips down the hill. Her run looks tight and fluid. However, when she gets to a place called the frogbank, she goes really wide on the turn, which really scrubs time, and it is a place that someone else is likely to tighten up in later runs. There is very little margin for error.

At the venue, you can watch the big screen and hear announcers in French and in English. I listen to see if I can understand anything the French announcer is saying since I took high school French. Every once in a while I understand a word or two, but am happier when the English announcer takes over. It’s actually quite fun to hear the way the transition back and forth from English to French and back.

About 9 gates from the finish, you can see the skier coming down the hill and can transition your eyes from the big screen to the racer in person and follow their course down the rest of the hill. The last three gates are fairly straightforward and the racer is in a tuck for the last 3. They haul over the finish line and turn sideways just in time to not hit the wall in the finish area. Instantaneously, a camera man comes to the racer and there is a close up shot shown on the big screen so you can see the expression of the racer right when they are finished. I have wondered if that would be a good thing if you had just finished a less than stellar performance, and suddenly a camera is taping your reactions. I suppose the teams are coached on how to manage this camera frenzy.

Julia Mancuso comes through the finish and seems pleased about her performance and waves to the crowd, who all wave back, including me. We are exactly in the center of the grandstands and have a great view.

Racer after racer come down the hill, and Julia’s time holds up, until it is Lindsey Vonn’s turn. They have been in this place before. It must be familiar territory for them. The announcer states that Julia has radioed to the top of the hill to give a course report on what to look for.

The cheers go up when Lindsey is in the gate, cowbells start ringing, and she takes off down the course. She looks like her normal compact efficient self. When she gets to the frogbank, she takes a tighter line than Julia, so we knew that if Lindsey maintained a clean run to the end, that she would take over the lead, which she does. Lindsey comes down, waves at the crowd and exits to see her teammate Julia, and they embrace each other in the leader’s area. People love Lindsey around here, whether from the US or not.

The Canadians, Emily Brydon and Shona Rubens do not finish. The other Canadians in this race, Britt Janyk and Georgia Simmerling finish, but not where they would like. Because I have been working and spending a lot of time with Canadians, I have also been following their athletes more than I would have ordinarily. I like my Canadian friends, and see their excitement over their athletes, as we are about ours, and it is contagious. I find myself cheering vigorously for their alpine racers, too, since now I know some of their stories.

Britt Janyk grew up within walking distance from Whistler Creekside. She is a home grown girl who is part of Whistler. This is her mountain. I spoke to a man at the Laundromat who was her and her brother’s ski instructor when they were little. I told him that he must have done a pretty good job of teaching her because look where she ended up. In all of his humbleness, he said it had nothing to do with him, and it was really all about her. She was special from the start. It has been so much fun to strike up conversations with people in the village. There is a friendliness like no other place I have seen. Wherever you go, people talk openly and happily. Another friend of mine who volunteered at the Salt Lake Games in 2002 stated that there is something in the air around the Olympics where everyone is happy. I certainly have drank the tonic.

Back to the Super G. Lindsey is in first place, and Andrea Fischbacher comes down the hill, knocking Lindsey out of first place. In the meantime, Maria Reisch and Elizabeth Goergl knock Julia off of the podium. It is unlucky that Julia had the first draw because people learned a lot by what her run looked like. It’s a bummer to be first.

Tina Maze from Slovakia comes down. She has a beautiful speed suit on. She comes ripping down the course and bumps Lindsey down one more position. But that would be all. No one else would challenge the top three, and Lindsey comes out with one more medal, a bronze for third place, for her efforts and Julia leaves with a very respectable finish time despite being the “educator” on the hill that day.

Leaving the grandstands is a bit tricky, you can take the chairlift back down, where the line is really long, and I have to go to work after this, or you can walk down. Rod, Nate and I decide to walk down. It is a long and steep walk on gravel. The VANOC (Vancouver Olympic Committee) know that it is a tough walk because they have a first aid station halfway down the hill, in case anyone crashes on their way down. I think this is strategically placed and hope I don’t need their services. There are people who actually climbed up the hill to the venue this morning. It is a 20-30 minute hike uphill, and this first aid station is strategically placed for issues of the heart or respiratory sort as well. VANOC has thought this through pretty well.

When we get to the bottom of the hill, there is a ticket booth where Rod buys tickets to the 2 man bobsleigh for he and Nate. I’m excited about that because they will be coming to my venue. I haven’t seen the bobsleigh yet, but am excited to see it and pleased that the boys will be able to see it too.