Feb 26: Women's Slalom

Yesterday was my last day on the job here! I had been scheduled to work the final two days, but we have managed to tear down all of our installations as they became unneeded, so there will be little to do on the final clean-up day. And, there are more than enough local area people staying on to do the mens's slalom today (Saturday).

Friday was very wet, with fog, rain and snow. It made the race challenging for workers and competitors, but the two runs were completed and all five of the women's alpine events are now complete! This is an amazing accomplishment, considering the weather/course conditions since Feb 12. It was only possible because the superhuman efforts of hundreds of course workers who toiled on the mountain nearly around the clock!

I did manual back-up timing at the start again yesterday and really enjoyed the vantage point. The technical events such as slalom don't enjoy the same level of fan interest as do the speed events, particularly here in North America, but I love the excitement of the 2-run races and high-paced dance that the racers do on a modern slalom course. It was fantastic to watch the best in the world coming out of the start gate and attacking smoothly on the upper course as they pierced into the fog and huge snowflakes. I saw later that the conditions made for some great super slo-mo imagery. I also saw that Laura and I were very visible in the TV camera shots of the start! What a great day for Canada in the slalom, too - three girls in the top 20!!

What a great day for Canada again overall yesterday! The hockey game was exciting and the short-track medal haul was astounding. Canada is now in first place in the gold medal standings! To think that we had never won Olympic gold on Canadian soil before and now we already have 10!
This morning, I went back into the "secure zone" one last time, to say goodbye to all the good folks I've worked with here - I'll miss them! But now, I'm waiting for my bus pick-up in Whistler looking forward to seeing some of the Edwards family as I pass back through Vancouver today, and to getting home to Sharon, Neil and Lexi.