Medal Count

As we get closer to the end of the Games, a lot of discussion is moving toward the medal count. I'm interested to hear your opinions about this measure and what you think about measuring just gold medals or overall medals. Currently, the US is leading in the overall count and we are in a close race with the total number of gold medals.

Do you think it matters that we count the number of medals each country wins?

Look forward to hearing from you!

More Cowbell!

If you've seen any of the skiing events you've heard all those cowbells in the crowd!

Here's one of our staff who found the largest cowbell she could find outside one of the skiing venues and had her picture taken with it!

She says this cowbell is quite heavy and you have to use your whole body to ring it! She's trying to find a similar one to bring back to Californina!

I've got a fever, and the only prescription is MORE COWBELL!!! (SNL)

Suisse Haus

This first pic is the gold medalist from Switzerland being carried on the shoulders of his countrymen from Medals Plaza (where he received his gold medal) to the Swiss House.

Almost every country has a "Country" house. For instance, we have a USA House, and located within walking distance of the Medals Plaza - the Swiss have their house.

Many of these houses are open to the public and are located throughout Wistler and Vancouver. The USA House is the only one that is not open to the general public and is only open to those with an invitation.

Here is a pic of the Swiss House the night their skiier won a gold medal and there was a full celebration underway! You'll see in this pic, those horns made famous by the Ricola commercials. Their real name is the Alpin horn, and it plays several notes. These players serenaded the general public and all Swiss fans into their house for a party!

I also heard there was a chocolate fountain inside too!

Bobsled room

I've spent several days with Bobsled during their training and competition and wanted to share a couple pics of the behind-the-scenes prep areas. Many people might imagine there would be several locker rooms for the athletes to change and prepare - there isn't! It's just one room with benches for everyone to share!

Here's a pic of the sled room where all the sleds are held and any last minute work is completed by the 'pit crew'. Notice that all the sleds are lined up very close together and all are out in the open for other countries to watch and see any adjustments that are being made.

Once the competition begins, each sled is carried out to the starting line by no less than four people. Each 4-man bobsled weighs about 120lbs!

This last pic is just of one of our sleds, it happened to be on the end of the row of sleds so I could get a closer look.

Real-Time!

I apologize for the delay in posting.

The other night I was at the women's bobsled competition at the Start House and caught US Bobsled's High Performance Director in action! You can see he has a small netbook sitting on top of the Luge start block and he has to stick is head through the metal gate to get a closer look. He's watching the live feed of this event, which is being sent to him over the internet. This allows him to save runs and then he can show it to the coaches and review each run with the athletes when they get back to the top of the hill.

To my knowledge, we were the only country doing this kind of on-hill analysis, and it turned out to be very beneficial for our sleds in between runs!

What a Day!!!

What an exciting day!! Six medals!!! That is one exceptional day, I can't think of any other time over the last four Olympic Games I've been a part of such an occasion. While the staff never take credit for winning any of the medals, we do, however, revel in the satisfaction and pride of a job well done!!

We are now in the groove of working 14-16hr days, which FLY by, and we never seem to get too tired - especially when there is so much excitement all around us.

I haven't been on any more mountain climbing adventures, but I frequently shuttle atletes and coaches back and forth to wherever they need to go since access to cars and especially parking is challenging to say the least.

WOW!!!

Two Sides to Every Story

I'm sure you've heard about the 18-0 women's hockey game where Canada shut out Slovakia....

If you thought that was unsportsmanlike, unfair, and just plain wrong - just take a look at this story where the same SLOVAKIAN women's hockey team beat Bulgaria 82-0!!!

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=3577150

So don't feel too badly for Slovakia...

Off to a Great Start!!!

We are still off to a great start and have done extremely well in events we traditionally are not competitive in, like Nordic Combined skiing. This event is ski jumping and cross country skiing combined and in case you missed it, each skier jumps one time, and then will start the skiing part of the race based on the results of the jump. So the longest ski jump will go first, and then the the second longest jump will go second etc. Our US team did incredibly well and earned our first ever medal, a silver. The top three Americans finished 2nd, 4th and 6th, to have the best finish by any country since the Fins in 1954!!!

The exciting part, is these guys aren't finished! There is a Nordic Combined RELAY where each will jump again, and then each will race 2.5km as part of the relay. We have a great opportunity here to do well and make sure to watch for this race on Tues Feb. 23rd at 1pm Pacific Time! There may be a delay in coverage, but look for it in the local listings or on NBCOlympics.com!

Did anyone see Short Track Speedskating the other night? It certainly lived up to it's motto - "that's short track"! It continues to be unpredictable, exciting and full of surprises! It will be back on in the next few days, and you can guarantee a tough fight between any American and Korean in these races - especially when Apolo skates!!

First Day of Competition!!

We are now underway with competition and it was a GREAT start for the Americans last night with an exciting night in short track speedskating - taking home silver and bronze, and then a gold and bronze from women's mogels skiing.

Unfortunately, the alpine skiing events have been postponed a little, but hopefully the weather will clear in the next few days and we'll be able to get back on schedule!

The mood is really positive and supportive between the athletes, coaches and staff and we are all looking forward to an exciting and competitive next couple of weeks!

Opening Ceremonies

Opening Ceremonies is always a special time filled with excitement and mystery! The staff at the USOC never attends an Opening Ceremony or walks in the athlete parade. Instead, we make sure all the athletes get to the venue, have the right clothes to walk in the parade and makes sure they all get home safely.

I always love to see how they light the cauldron, and this time was a little different since the ceremony was held indoors, but I thought they did a great job of showcasing the native history of Canada and found a creative way to light the cauldron!

Our staff went to a house we will use to host coaches and athletes after their competition. This is a pic of some of the group as we watch the Opening Ceremonies!

The Lookout Spot

Here is a view from the ridge we hiked up to yesterday! This is the hill where all of the ski runs will take place. The men's course is on the left side and the women's is on the right. We were about 2 miles across the valley with a high powered camera to film. Unfortunately, the clouds rolled in as soon as the training runs started se we were unable to see the skiers... But these things happen...

Notice the top of the trees in the shot - we were that high!





While we were waiting for the runs to start, we built two benches out of wood we found around our area so we wouldn't have to sit on the snow and freeze. Not only do I need to know how to use cameras and computers for this job, but I also need to be prepared for hiking in the woods, climbing, standing outside in the snow, using available resources to construct what we need and navigating in the woods! So, while things like these might happen only once or twice, it's what makes this job so much fun, every day is always an adventure!!!

For those concerned about getting hurt on the job, I have never been seriously hurt on the job. We have great doctors up here should anything happen, but most of us do not put ourselves in any unnecessary danger - we are well trained in how events run and what to expect.

Other Duties as Assigned

Thank you for all the wonderful questions! Keep them coming!

One of the best things about my job is that no day is ever the same. There are so many little things that need to be completed throughout the lead up, no one can specifically guess what you'll be asked to do on any given day.

The last two days are a perfect example. One of our teams had a really heavy piece of weightroom equipment that needed to be switched from one place to another. It was tall, awkward and needed to be moved a few miles down the road. Since we hadn't planned on moving it, we didn't have the right equipment. Luckily, a flatbed truck with a crane on it just happened to be making a delivery ourside our offices and we asked him if we could rent his truck for a few hours to move this equipment.



Today I had yet another unexpected adventure! The downhill ski team needed a view of the top section of the race courses so they could see the lines which the skiers skied down, which couldn't be seen from any of the roads. So this forced three of us to hike up the mountain directly across the valley and up as high as possible until we go to a clearing where we could see the course. Since there are no trails, and plenty of snow to hike through, it took us about and hour and a half to reach the lookout. We were all dripping with sweat since we had to struggle through snow and we sometimes would sink down to our knees and even our hips.

Here is our vantage point about two miles away! (Looks like I'm having trouble uploading these pics, but I'll get them up shortly.)

Being prepared is always the key. At the top I had packed a full set of new dry clothes to change into so I wouldn't be freezing cold after a few minutes. We are in constant radio contact with the coaches on the hill, so if anything happens we can let them know. During a delay on the course, we built a bench out of deadwood we found to make it a little more pleasent.

Bottom line is we need to be ready for just about anything... And it looks like I'll be making the hike up the mountain up the mountain at least for the next two days!!! GO TEAM USA!

Superbowl in Canada? Oh, yeah!!

Just because we're in Canada and preparing for the Olympic Games, doesn't mean we're not interested in the Superbowl!!! Here is a picture of our informal party with our three TV's.

Since the commercials are just as entertaining we had to find a way to watch them too. Did you know those famous commercials are only televised in the United States? Not to fear!! Notice how the large screen in the middle has a different screen? We used a Slingbox to watch one of my co-workers TV's in Colorado and watched the commercials on the middle screen (since the quality was as good, since it goes through the internet) and then watched the rest of the game in HD on the outer two! It was a lot of fun and we stuffed ourselves with pizza and chips too!

There are now four days until Opening Ceremonies and so far there hasn't been a lot of snow falling, which has led the organizing committee to inject dry ice into tubes and install them beneath the snow to help perserve the snow on the moguls course. This is a developing story and it will be interesting to see how well this works.

Olympic Village

The Olympic Village is always a special place for coaches and athletes participating in the Games. It is the one place where all the athletes live during the duration of the Games and often the only opportunity to meet people who participate in a sport besides their own.

Generally, new housing is built so the athletes are the first ones to occupy the building. Afterwards the housing is converted into dorms for a training center or sold to the general public for affordable housing.

For the Winter Games, there are two Villages since the mountain venues are so far from the city. Each Village has a medical clinic, dining hall - with a 24hr McDonald's, arcade room with all sorts of video games, pool tables etc, a weightroom, and easy access to transportation. There is also a cauldron that will be lit when the Games begin and will stay lit until the Closing Ceremonies.

The Running of the Torch

Hello from the beautiful mountains of Whistler, British Columbia!!! This will be my fourth Olympic Games and it's always exciting!!

I have been in Canada for 13 days setting up and preparing for athletes and coaches who will start arriving in the next few days. My job is to help athletes get video footage of practice and/or competition footage so they can evaluate and make adjustments based on what the conditions are that day. I'll be working with the sliding sports of Bobsled, Skeleton and possibly Luge. Some days I'll be on the sliding track to film individual corners of the run so athletes can see how they slid through a particular turn. Other times I may be captuing video on my computer from the live broadcast feed and then passing it on to coaches.

Here is a pic of how we moved in all our stuff up to the second story office we are renting!!! Who says you always have to take the stairs!



Today marked another major milestone in the lead-up to the Games - the Torch Relay. The Olympic flame originates in Athens, Greece with an ancient lighting ceremony and then travels around the world until it arrives in the Olympic Stadium the night of Opening Ceremonies and lights the main cauldron to signify the start of the Games. It passed the Olympic Village in Whistler today around 4pm and it is always really cool to watch it pass!


With one week to go, we are getting really excited for the start of the Games!!

Please post any comments or questions! I will be checking this blog frequently - What do you want to know???