Last Day of My Olympic Adventure

Friday was the last event for the Ladies: the Slalom. All Ladies crews had a 3:00 AM load time - we were told to report to Dustys (a restaurant bar at the bottom of Creekside that is currently being used by the athletes and coaches during the day). There was breakfast being served. The reason we had such an early load time is that they anticipated snow overnight - for once during these games it didn't snow overnight so we weren't needed until 5:30 AM. They turned the lights off and most people went back to sleep - on the floor, on benches, on tables or sitting in chairs. At about 6:00 AM we headed up to mid station to wait for further instructions. We had a small job of putting up some c-fence to keep people off the course. After we finished we went up to collect the tools that we would need for the race.

Our crew were all positioned near the bottom of the course. This was an excellent position as we were close to the stadium and could not only hear the announcer but the roar of the crowd. We could also see the athletes as they entered the finish area. We all needed to put on crampons to be able to manoeuvre around on the course. Each person was responsible for maintaining their gate with both a rake and shovel - we needed to keep the snow smooth and we also had to wipe down the gate to keep off the excess water that could get on to the athlete's goggles (this was a first for me!). There were 83 athletes in the first run - it took an hour and a half to run. It was very wet - huge snowflakes fell turning into huge water droplets upon impact. We had to stay at our spot for the whole day - they did a quick reset of the course and an inspection - the second run started at 1:00 pm. It was a very exciting race - Maria Reich from Germany won! The best Canadian was Bridget Acton in 17th.

After the race we were all soaked to the bone and really cold! We had to go in to get dry and warm. I headed back to the Murdochs to get changed and start on my packing - then I bused back to Creekside to see everyone for the last time at the Weasel House. Nelda, Tracy and Mike along with some others had dinner at the Chop House - I decided to head home to get my packing done. I was in bed at 11:00 and up at 2:30 am to get my 3:45 am shuttle to the Vancouver Airport. I remember thinking when I booked the shuttle in January that 3:45 AM was really early - little did I know then that it would be a bit later then I was used to getting up! The flight was great - we had a quick stop over in Calgary and then on to Ottawa! My brother picked me up and brought Jillian and my nephew David along.

My Olympic Adventure was an expereince of a lifetime. I loved every minute but when I arrived in Ottawa I was really glad to be home!!

Here is a link to the last set of Olympic pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.ca/janeluv2ski/JaneSOlympicAdventure15?feat=directlink