Ladies Race Day

Very cold today. Stuck with all the layers of clothes all day. Base Layer. Turtle neck. Helly Hanson sweater. Tag Heur equipment vest. Down vest. Full length Coaches coat.

Left the hotel room 'knowing' I had forgot something. Yep, just as I was getting my boots on, it was ski socks I forgot to take with me. That means I had to dry out the only pair of socks I had with me. Won't make the same mistake tomorrow.

It is pretty awesome to watch all of these athletes get ready to start. Each has their own pattern. Some have their coach rub snow on the back of their next. Others take time to say hi. Some just look straight out the door the entire time. It is very clear that those that are somewhat relaxed do much better.

Today was a full TV presentation. Live in Austria, tape delay in Canada. Not sure in the US of A. I still have not seen 1 minute of the show. However, it is all taped at home, so I will get a chance to review it next week. The camera that you see the racer start from is manned by Brian from CBC. All the CBC guys are great. Anyway, you might have noticed that the camera seemed to be hand-held during the first few skiers. Brian could not get his camera connected to his tripod as the latching mechanisms were frozen. What a professional.

The local timing volunteers planted both a loonie and a quarter on the start ramp. Clearly it worked today. Go Canada Go as Britt managed a 3rd place finish in a very tough crowd.

The second the race is over for the athletes, the race starts for timing, television and media to move to the Super G start for tomorrow. However, the new start ramp wasn't even built yet. We tear out our wiring, working around the media/advertising guys and then hump all the staff down the track and pile it up at the new start. We then ski down for a warm up break, resulting in us getting back on the lift about 4:15pm just as the sun has set.

By the time we get to the new start, it is just about built and we can start to get some of the wires for tomorrow's race in place. Still takes a few hours. We then get to ski down about 6pm in the total darkness with head lamps on. Pretty nice actually.

Tomorrow is our last day for this team. Once the Super G is over, we bring down everything. Ted will stick around for the NorAm race which is great as it means we don't have to pack up everything tomorrow.

It looks like our next gig might be Kitzbuhel, Austria. Maybe I will actually get to see one of the most famous races this time.

Saturday morning

I'm at the start. No wind but the air temp is -22C.

Feet are already cold.

Last Training Day

Wow.. cold this morning. -30C in the valley. Not much warmer at the base lodge. Fortunately, I had packed my Coaches coat to wear.

When Coop and I got to the top, most of the mountain was still in the shadows of sunrise. Amazing view across the valley with the warm gold mountain tops.

When the Sun finally hit us in the start hut, it went from -22C to about -8C in minutes. Now most of you are still going to think that is pretty cold, but we were able to sit in front of the start hut with only 7 layers of clothes on instead of 12. Didn't even need gloves. Palm trees not included.

CBC was also fully set up today as practice for tomorrow's broadcast. You should be able to hear the starter (me) doing the final count down for the racer to start. Tomorrow (Saturday) looks like a pretty cold day with the high for the day being about -22C. That means the full length Grey Coaches coat for me.

Thursday - Training Run for Women

After standing in the start hut all day (from about 9:30am till 3pm), no matter how warm or cold it is, I usually am cold by the end of the day. This results to a bee-line to the hot tub as soon as I'm able to get back to the hotel.

Yesterday, most of us headed down to enjoy the tub, only to find it at about 45 degree F. Well, it wasn't that cold, but it wasn't that warm either. It was actually about 97F. Just not that warm for a hot tub. It should be about 103F. 102 can feel cool, while 104F feels pretty hot. Well..... I jumped in it today and almost jumped out. It was 108F. Now I know how a lobster feels. At least I lived and didn't end up on some plate with warm butter.

This brings up a point. How hard is it for the guy who stands near the desk at the pool to check the temperature from time to time?? All he has to do is fold some towels and then sell some beer to those in the tub. Maybe it was his ploy to sell more beer today. Who knows........
Saturday is the live TV show, if your in Austria, or some other place in the EU. Canada will see it on tape delay, likely starting around 4pm ET. As the starter, I stand on the right side of the TV picture in my Red Spyder Precision Timing issued jacket. ORF (Austrian TV) will likely show only the first 34 skiers or so. CBC will show the first 30, any other Canadians and any crashes.

For those of you looking for new pictures, it is going to be tough for me to grab any during the actual race. I might be able to mount the camera with a remote shutter release and see what I can get. I might get lucky, but it is tough with so much going on during the start.

Stop reading here for most of you. Propeller heads, carry on----

The attached picture is the junction box that we install at each start. Brian Cooper built a couple of these to make our lives easier. On it you will find the following:

• System A start and a feed to a Timy to record start times
• System B start and a feed to a Timy to record start times
• Headset for the starter
• Headset for the backup hand timer
• Display data from from the bottom so we can make our cute display boards at the start show real running time just like in the finish area
• Data going from the Radar gun to the finish hut - we are practising for another venue to see how well it works

Wednesday - Ladies Training Day

Big news today, I was the starter for my 1st World Cup ski race. Pretty cool actually.

However, it is very easy to screw up those in the timing shack, not to mention those that do the graphics, live to web, etc.

Well, when you accidentally go to return the start gate (it automatically stays open after the skier leaves the start house) and it 'bounces' you managed to set another skier on the course. Well, lots of things happen down below, usually followed by some screaming in the headphones.

So, the gate 'slipped' out of my hand about 10 seconds after a skier had just started. Suffice to say, I won't let that happen again. Sorry Ted and Jim and Peter and Toby and Tami. They all had to scramble to correct my error. Good thing we weren't live to TV today. I can't let that happen tomorrow.

Backing up to Monday. I had an amazing skate on Lake Louise. It has just started to snow, but I was able to skate the entire lake on perfectly smooth ice. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the people skating around with hockey sticks.

Monday - day of rest

Well, not really. Although I'm trying NOT to head up to the finish hut, the slow Internet here might drive me to do that. We have a full T1 connection there for the 10 of us, while here at the Chateau Lake Louise they have a T1 connection for the entire resort.
I've posted a number of pictures at http://www.portcredit.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=25.
Yesterday's race went off without a hitch. Pretty cold at the start of the Super G. However, it was a good thing the start wasn't at the top near the Downhill start as it was blowing a gale up there. I spent the day near the television tower at the first interval time. About 24 seconds into the race.
Today? Laundry and maybe a skate on the famous Lake Louise outside. Still looks amazing as it has only frozen a week ago and it hasn't snowed since. For $8 I can rent some skates and blast around for miles.
Tomorrow, we get back on the hill and start setting up for the Ladies DH. Training starts on Wednesday and the DH is on Saturday.

Internet at the Chateau

Did I mention that the internet in the inn would have to reach up to be brutal? Seriously, I have more bandwidth at my house.