Finally Race Day!

WOW what a day!! One of my all time personal best days! I apologize - our crew was on the hill at 6:00 AM and off at 5:00 pm and I have to be on the lift for 4:00 AM tomorrow - I won't be able to write prose - I am going to do this blog in point form to save time - I have to get to bed!

- Monday night met Sean and Kim Gilmour and Natalie and Antony Courtney for dinner in Whistler Village. First we had a special Olympic Cocktail in the bar at the Fairmont - Yummy! They are in Whistler to see the Ladies Downhill.

- The ride up Garbonzo chair as the sun was rising was amazing!

- Snow had frozen overnight - the track was hard and fast!

- First assignment was to deliver large pails of "race base" (another word for fertilizer that is applied to the snow if it is too soft to harden it up) to various spots on the course.

- During our trip down the race course we stopped to congratulate Carl Ricker whose daughter Maelle Ricker won GOLD in the ladies boarder cross on Monday - Carl is a section Chief and reported for duty this morning at 5:00 AM to prepare his section for the race - now that`s DEDICATION!

- Our race assignment was to be at the bottom of the course ready with "race base" in case the snow softened up during the race. Myself, Mike, Bob, Erin and Nelda were assigned to the jump at the bottom of the course called "Hot Air", Tracy, Gord, Jen and Tom were assigned to the finish area. This was an amazing assignment as they are both prime viewing areas.

- We arrived at our stations at 8:30 AM in preparation for an 11:00 AM start. Before the race the athletes are allowed an inspection of the course where they sideslip through it in order to look at the line they will take and the tricky parts of the course. Most Ladies stopped for a while at the jump and I was able to see them very close up! Lindsay Vonn spent a lot of time looking at the jump - it seems to have paid off!!

- The race was incredibly exciting! for those of you that watched on TV you will have seen the challenging terrain and big jump at the bottom. Unfortunately there were some really big crashes and some athletes were injured. We had front row seats on the side of the course for all the action - it was amazing! Vonn from the US was first, Mancuso from the US was second and Goergl from Austria was third.

- After the race we went to the Ladies Super Combined Slalom start to prepare the ramp. The Super Combined is running tomorrow - it is one run of Downhill in the morning and one run of Slalom in the afternoon - adding the 2 times together. The Downhill will start at 9:30 AM. Not sure what we will be doing in the morning but in the afternoon Tracy and I have been assigned to a gate to maintain in the Slalom - really excited about that! We think it is close to the bottom but not sure.

Thanks for following - post comments and pass along to others. I need to do captions for my pictures on Picasa - will do that over the next couple of days and put the link in my blog.