Feb 19-21: 3 more glorious sunny days!

Wow!  After starting off the Olympics with warm, wet weather that made it look as if we might never be able fit in the alpine skiing events, we've been blessed by a fantastic stretch of clear, cool nights and sunny days.  The courses have held up well and the spectators have been comfortable and happy.

On the 19th, during the men's Super G, I worked on tear-down of the starts on the upper Women's course.  Once the downhill and super-combined were done, we were able to dig up our cables and put all of our gear away from the top three start locations.  Once again, I was able to watch a portion of the race from the finish area.  It is so exciting to be there with the thousands of cheering spectators, and I was able to see many of the athletes up close as they exited "media row". 

On Saturday the 20th, I did hand timing at the start, which meant that I got to stand just outside the start tent, about 2 metres from the start gate.  I was on TV as every racer started, but unless you knew I was there, you would never notice.  Here's a TV screen shot of Anja Paerson starting, with me in the left side of the frame.  

On the evening of the 20th, we went to the village again, and caught the tail end of the Hedley concert from outside the medal ceremony area, plus some unexpected bonus fireworks at the end of the show. The Village Stroll was the busiest I've seen yet, with people from all over the globe enjoying the atmosphere.  

Today was the men's super-combined race.  I was not assigned to any tasks for the race, so I worked on tear-down of the women's alternate (bad weather) Super G start and set-up wiring of the women's GS start.  I was amazed that Bode Miller won the event today.  He has been a very dominant racer in years past (similar to the dominance that Lindsey Vonn enjoys now), but he could not have been expected by many to do so well during these Olympics.  It was great to see that he hung around the finish for a very long time, conducting interviews and signing autographs.

    Way to go, George Grey of Rossland, and the rest of the Canadian men's cross-country ski team!             Their unprecedented results in the 30km pursuit yesterday did us all proud.

    In a few minutes, I'll be going live with Simi Sara on CKNW AM 980 as she guest hosts the World Today Weekend program!  So, I will close this up now and stand by for her call after the 4:30 news!