Back in Race Mode

I'm just back from serving as Chief of Timing for a six day Nor-Am series at Panorama Mountain Resort. The Nor-Am series is one step below the World Cup and features athletes that are on the cusp of international/Olympic competition, plus some who have already been there and are working their way back to the big stage.

I had an amazingly capable core crew of three guys that I had asked to work the event with me: Dusan Kafka of Whistler, Steve Mullen of Calgary, and Alar Ruutopold of Rossland. Plus, local volunteer extraordinaire, Gordon Bagan, joined right in with our crew while also sharing Race Chair duties. Gordon ensured that whenever we needed something else, it would be found for us. Finally, our crew was filled out by a variety of men and women who did a fantastic job with hand timing and start, finish and scoreboard control.

The entire series went off very well and I had a lot of fun. We were treated very well by Panorama Mountain Resort and Alpine

Canada Alpin - nice places to sleep, plenty of yummy breakfasts, lunches, apres ski snacks and beverages and lots of smiles and words to make us feel appreciated. Panorama is a beautiful place any time of year, but with fresh light snow just before Christmas, it is really magical.

We timed about 1300 runs in those six days and dealt with a few "curveballs" along the way, so I am definitely back in mid-season race timing form. I am really looking forward to working with Steve, Dusan and others from this event who will be at the Olympics in a little over a month now!

Here's a kid to watch for in coming years - he is only 16 years old and his name is Matej Falat. This young racer from Slovakia started 62nd in the men's slalom on Dec 15th and finished in a two-way tie for 30th place on the first run. That meant he just made the "flip" and got to run second in the second run. With a clean track, he managed to lay down the fastest time on the second run, and finished 19th in the two-run race. Here, he is shown competing in the slalom portion of the Super-Combined on Dec 17th. (I grabbed this shot when Dusan took the reigns for timing on that run!)