Hello from Whistler, BC!

What an incredible place to be right now! Whistler is home to the sliding sports (skeleton, luge and bobsleigh), ski jumping, biathlon and X-country events, as well as the Alpine races. Today, due to soft snow conditions on the bottom of the course and too much snow on the top, the men’s downhill (THE big event here) was postponed until Monday. The women’s super combined was scheduled to go off tomorrow, but the women weren’t able to complete a training run today. The international ski federation (FIS) rules state that at least one training run must be completed before the athletes can race in a downhill event. So the races have just been pushed back a few days (hopefully the women’s training run will go tomorrow, as the women’s downhill is scheduled for Wednesday and men’s downhill for Monday.) The athletes are very used to these delays in alpine skiing – it is common for races to be pushed back a few days to wait for colder, clearer weather to arrive. Sometimes the athletes even wait hours in the same day to race, as the fog lifts or the winds subside. However, because of the logistics of media and other officials coming up from Vancouver (2 hours by car) for the races, decisions on race have to be made either the night prior to or very early on the morning of the race. We knew last night that the men’s downhill would be canceled today – which meant that I got to ski!! The conditions on the top of the mountain are amazing, with lots of fresh powder and cold wintery snow. (It’s the bottom half of the mountain that has soft, slushy snow.) Also, the visitor and locals are not skiing – they are all attending events – so up top there are no line ups and great conditions!

The Olympic visitors are not skiing, but they are down in the village, which is going crazy with activity, live music, street performers (2 hockey players on stilts!) and big screens broadcasting live Olympic competition. The feeling in the village is remarkable! So many international visitors are here! I think many of the European Olympic fans have come to Whistler (rather than, or in addition to, Vancouver), because the sports Whistler is hosting are typically strong for the many of the European countries (eg X-country, biathlon, ski jumping, etc.) The village walks are packed with every nation’s people, and everywhere one turns, you can hear, Italian, French, German, Japanese, British accents, Aussie accents…. you name it! Many of the locals have rented out their houses and condos to Olympic visitors, so the village is now a melting pot of international tourists – most walking around with their country’s flags and gear on their backs! During Apres (that’s what we call happy hour after skiing here) I sat, in a little hidden bar because all the main ones were too packed with visitors and live entertainment to even get into, watching live women’s freestyle moguls with friends. I sat beside two men from Munich who told me, in broken English, that they are here for 5-6 days to watch events! They are big skiers back home – Munich is central to many great ski areas, such as Innsbruck, Garmisch, Kitzbuhel – but are not skiing here at Whistler because they “don’t have time!” They are too busy going to so many events, and loving it all!

Everything is underway. The men’s luge had two practice runs today, on a course with a lowered start. The men had to start from the lower women’s start, which, apparently, many athletes were not happy about. They have raced and trained on the original course for over a year, and are used to it. To start from lower down changes their timing throughout the course. One athlete interviewed today noted that the one who wins will be the one best able to adapt and learn to drive fastest on the “new” course after only 2 training runs. The bottom of the course is still fast, but the top is slower for them – and many of the experienced lugers say that the fast and technical top part was their favorite and most exciting part. A wall was built overnight in the area where Nodar went off the track, so it is now impossible to do off. (An overnight investigation found his death to be the result of human error, rather than due to an deficiency in the track itself.) The athletes are very focused and the race should go well.

Tomorrow morning is my first shift in the Polyclinic, and my first trip to the athlete’s village. Should be fun!