We had to get up super early to catch the 6:30 am shuttle from the Whistler Day Lots (now known as WTM, or the Whistler Transportation Mall). And since I'd been working until 10:40 the night before, both Mike and I were grumbly and exhausted. But we boarded the bus no problem and arrived at Whistler Olympic Park (with the unfortunate acronym of WOP) by about 7:15. Isn't it beautiful in the Callaghan Valley?
It's a sleepy, snowy valley high in the mountains where they have awesome cross-country ski trails, snowshoeing, and now the Ski Jump venue, the Cross Country stadium and the Biathlon stadium. The bus dropped us off at the security screening, then we had a 500 metre walk up a snowy trail, fork in the road, then 400 more metres up to the Ski Jump venue. 
Because we got there early (other people were smarter and took a later shuttle!) we got an awesome place right at the fence. This was our view: 
Here we are on the jumbotron; can you see us?
I circled & pointed to us in red...As we were right on the fence, they would soar through the air on the jump, land and ski right past us. ***Had to take some pictures down; can't have competition shots up on a blog! VANOC rules*** Then they would take off their skis and trudge past us on their way to the lift. Here's the Swiss skier, walking past us just after his first jump.
He would go on to win the competition! Here's me and the Polish skier who got Silver: 
Can you tell I got up REALLY early? We were standing with a large group of Polish supporters, so we found ourselves cheering loudly for Adam. Glad he won Silver!Here's Simon Ammann, the Swiss skier, just after he found out he'd won Gold:
The Swiss were happy!
The Austrian with the really long name got the Bronze. He was exciting to watch, too!I'm not going to rant too much about the transportation "Issues" to get us out of there. I am going to assume they are working out the first-day kinks. AHEM. I believe they knew ahead of time that 12,000 of us would be leaving at the same time. I also believe that they knew that there is no other way out of the Callaghan other than by bus. I know I would have put those two facts together and prepared the buses to be waiting for us. That is all I can say on the issue other than although I was out of uniform, and it wasn't my role, I stepped up and got our Whistler spectators onto the right buses. Just sayin'.
It was awesome anyway! And we got home in time to spend the afternoon with the boys, who I hadn't seen in forever. There was a LOT of cuddling. :)
2 comments:
WOW! You got Great Position! And you can sleep in March.
You should seriously consider becoming a world leader or at the very least, a teacher! Awesome shots and I am so jealous!!! Can only imagine what the energy is like when you're actually there!
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