NOoooo....it's over: we're all in Olympic 'withdrawal'...

I find my self wearing a piece of my smurf outfit ever day... not all at the same time...cause this I had to do for four weeks straight. But just one piece at a time... my hat for my spring ski out in the Gatineau Park, my vest when sitting at my desk and yes my lovely blue rainjacket with the Olympic rings registered on the back walking to the grocery store...cause I'm so proud to have been a Volunteer at the Olympics !

And you would be amazed how many people notice and say hey, 'what was your volunteer job ?' and... 'I too was there' - or ' You guys worked so hard' - or ' I was glued to the TV set for two weeks straight and am now in Olympic withdrawls'... and I say "me too!"

I can't believe it's over.

The Paralympics were my Olympic addiction slow return to normal life...my daily chats with Dirk who was still out-west grooming helped immensely. Now he too is coming home after a very long two months of continuous work. Dirk just called me from one of Vancouver2010's legacy's...the 'Sky-train'. He took it from Richmond after having returned his VANOC truck and was heading to the airport for the red-eye flight home. Tomorrow will be our first time together as a family in two months...Katrina is also home from down-under where she was training for her whitewater kayak sport. Stefani held the fort here on First Av - and I must say did a fine job that of course included 'watering' my plants, snow removal, garbage out on the curb on Tuesdays and with the recyling tossed many items I never had the heart to 'throw-out' - cause she could !

Skiing in the Gatineau Park last weekend, I met up with fellow Banana Ski teammate of my youth - aka southern Ontario skiing nickname of the time... Dan Mallet, whom I had heard had a key role with Olympic medals. He too was in major Olympic withdrawals. And after hearing his story, now I know why. Dan headed up the mint's medal creation team for the past 2 years, and was physically at the end of the 7 hour line-up in downtown Vancouver where the public was not only able to see the medals upfront, but have their photo taken wearing one...and able to ask Dan and his team how they were made, designed and the inspiration behind these beautiful pieces of hardware. Dan told me that he personally spoke to over 40,000 people. He also mentioned that the mint made 690 medals for the Olympics and 300 for the Paralympics. Wow ! The Mint here in Ottawa still has these beauties emblazoned on it's outer walls with line-ups heading in this past weekend...I hope I too get to see a copy in weeks to come. Perhaps a personal tour from Dan, to help him get over his post-Olympic-blues ! That is...if he reads my blog :)

This just arrived in my inbox from Susan Denny ...our energetic leader from Comox Valley aka Mt Washington, BC ski terrain - fast and female Marshal 1 :

WHAT a TEAM !

I believe I have thanked most of our team members personally on your great efforts “on course” but as I missed a few of the gatherings at the end of the Paralympics I would like to take the time to share some thoughts and thank everyone once again .

I have c.c.’d the chiefs and others as the Olympics and Paralympics as we know becomes a huge team effort .

Our course marshal teams certainly appreciated the good spirits and help from the other areas.

I think Mike Edwards, had a few smiles on some days when he saw how well his 5 areas ( transportation, forerunners, course marshals , course marking and grooming ) came “in sink” and worked as “a course team” . Maybe some days we interpreted some commands upside down and backwards but in the end we pulled off what we needed to J Thank you from our whole team to Course 1 and Course 2’s ( Mike, Jonas and Shawn)

A Big thank you to Nicola, John and Audra.

A Big Thank you to Christine , Lo , Claudia and Harriet ( Marshal #2 ‘s) – for starting our teams off on the early days and finishing with spunk , enthusiasm and energy to the end.

For the rest of you , wow; you were all great !

Everyone’s journey to these events and during was different ; some learned lots ; some of you contributed a great deal to the team . What a legacy we have created for B.C. and Canada.

The best was arriving each morning a seeing smiles at 7:00 am raring to go out onto the FOP to create a safe environment for the amazing and inspiring athletes.

Continue to share your stories and photos everyone.

All the best,

Susan Denny

Course Marshal #1

We had quite a group from the Ottawa Region working at Cross Country... too busy to get us all together, but we did manage one photo of the Nakkertok contingent at our final Feb 28th celebration.

I'll close today with a shot that really summarizes my amazing job: front row seats - TRACKSIDE2010 !

Hope you too continue to wear you're prized red mittens - something that will keep us all remembering this incredible event put on by Canadians in Canada !

IF keen to learn more and relive the Paralympics, here is a superb U-tube site: http://player27.narrowstep.tv/nsp.aspx?player=ParalympicSportTV#ns_dummy_link

Final Weekend at WOP

Saturday was Relay Day for Cross Country - Women did 3 x 2.5kms and the Men 1 4km + 2 x 5km course. Russia dominated the Gold, Ukraine the Silver and Norway hit bronze in the Men, with Belarus in the Women.

The final night of grooming started at 1am. That was because it was supposed to snow. Snow never came - instead rain all night and all day...making for a dreary long last day at WOP. And of course the courses needed loads of salting this morning to harden the tracks for the final day - Sprint races. Sit skiers skied an 800m course. Standing skiers skied the 1.2km course (the Women's Sprint course from 2009). The turn-around corner was a bit sketchy, so Dirk and a second machine worked for over 2 hours to build up a 2m high wall to severely bank the corner.

Lo Lanning - head marshal # 2 has been great in keeping us up-to-date on marshal TRACKSIDE for the Paralympics. Here's her story from today: "The Russians owned the podium, that's for sure. The Mckeever fellas were rather spectacular as well.....doubled poled the whole thing practically and rumour has it he wore skate skis!...passed his brother early on right after leaving the stadium and charged right through ahead of Robin to the finish. They had 30 seconds to make up on the first starter, and made quick work of that, in the lead before the turn around, I believe! Our marshal team ran like clockwork today...smooth as butta! eventhough the weather could have been betta...it was a long day....Start at 10 quarterfinals lasted right til noon,...then semis ...then finals and THEN MEDAL ceremony...ao...ao...ao....ao....ao....times 6....Finally got to wrap up at 3pm! Phew! And did I mention rain ! "

And medal, the Canadian brother team did. The Vancouver Sun reported the following:

McKeever made a calculated gamble in the final of the sprint event. Racing in rain and sticky snow conditions, they decided not to wax their skis and instead used pure strength to power their way to victory.

"The tracks were slowing down because they were getting wet," Brian McKeever said. "That was part of what made the decision. "We had a good strategy. We had to make the decision and believe in it 100 per cent."

McKeever came into the Paralympics with an objective to win three gold.

Mission accomplished.

"That was the goal coming in," said the 30-year-old. "It was not one we wanted to put out to people. You can never predict what the other competitors would do. "We had to put down our best races to do it. We tried to play to our strengths."

McKeever's victory Sunday at Whistler Olympic park, which he secured alongside his guide, brother Robin, marks Canada's 10th gold medal of the 2010 Games and is McKeever's ninth career Paralympic medal.

Great conditions for Paraolympics

Minus 6 at night and plus temperatures during the day have the groomers starting at 4pm - the transition time - when the sun leaves the tracks and start to freeze up.

Different game plan each day, Dirk meets with the Jury and TD's right after the day's races to initiate the next days course planning. Normally 6 pages of notes are recorded during their ski around the race course. These notes are then transferred to his grooming team - often first discussed in Trailer 2 as to the best way to execute the plan. His team is a diverse group with un believable expertise. Mt Washington on the island groomers Mark Lister and Tom Kennedy have the most experience with para-nordic track setting...and similar snow conditions, thus their input is highly valued. Groomed with the large Pisten Bully 400 machines, then reviewed by skiing the entire race course with fine scrutiny. Tracks for standing visually impaired skiers need to be continuous, no breaks - which means manual grooming in erratic corners. Sit ski tracks need to be level - which means quite a bit of raking and then adding in a manually created track...a track pan pulled by hand.
And of course salting will come to play in the plus degree conditions still facing the skiers at Whistler Olympic Park.


While in Toronto not having the opportunity to tune in to athletics...cause I was hamming it up in front of CP24(the new 24 hour news channel) in a raft at the Sportsman Show as well as doing the brochure distribution rounds for our summer businesses... decorated Paralympian Colette Bourgonje added a second medal to her 2010 collection on Thursday, earning bronze in the women's 5km sitting cross-country ski race. The 48 year old athlete is an inspiration to women world-wide, sending the message that age is not a barrier - passion and hard work can achieve goals that are realistic not only for able bodied athletes...but for those that have unique challenges. It takes creativity, will power and support to reach goals. The benefit is not only an individual gain, but shared by all that surround you. Congrats Colette and thank you for paving a path - one that opens up opportunities, closes barriers that traditionally may have halted us. You have shown us that this can be a temporary speed bump, a derailment...or change of tracks.... one that brings new joy into a sport for life ! Thank you !

Brian McKeever is becoming a successful gold miner...adding to his collection a second first place podium finish on Thursday in the 10km classic competition with brother Robin as his guide. To finish 1 and a half minutes ahead of the field must be a very rewarding feeling to "Own the Podium".

Whistler Olympic Park from a different perspective

McKeever wins Gold !

Brian McKeever finished over 44 seconds ahead of his rival from Russia, Nikoly Polukhin to clinche the GOLD medal - Canada's first of these Paraolympic Games and the first ever on Canadian soil.

"That was a lot of fun. It meant a lot. That was the one we were waiting to win and that's the one we really wanted," Brian McKeever said today after finishing the four laps of the red 5km course for a total of 20kms.

Not a large crowd, but a loud crowd overwhelmed Brian so much so, he couldn't hear brother Robin's directions in the final 100m's. They were here to witness history as the duo crossed the finish line in the top time of the day. The weather was gorgeous - sunny - enough to need those trade-mark shades over long side-burns: "McKeever look"... started off at zero, rising to +5 at the end of the race.

Men's 20 km Free, Visually Impaired

Cross-Country Skiing Medallists

Rank	Start Order	Country	Name	Time
1 0019007	7	Canada	McKEEVER Brian	51:14.7
2 0029011	11	Russian Federation	POLUKHIN Nikolay	51:55.6
3 0039014	14	Belarus	SHAPTSIABOI Vasili	52:22.5

Canada had two entries in the Men's Visually Impaired category with Ottawa's Alexei Novikov finishing in 13th place just over 17 minutes behind McKeever. Jody Barber came in 6th in the Standing category, Robbi Weldon in 5th and Margarita Gorbounova 7th in the Women's Visually Impaired races.

A rest day at WOP tomorrow...no wonder Dirk said he was heading up the mountain. It is meant to rain tomorrow, but this won't be the case above 1000m's - beautiful fresh powder skiing. Dirk mentioned to me that the Village was quite busy, even busier than during the Olympics. March Break is on in Ontario, thus most likely across North America and ski fans are finally flying west to see for them selves what all the excitement is about.

March 17th will see Biathlon long distance racing at WOP. In long-distance biathlon, competitors ski the loop five times and stop four times at the shooting range. Missing a target plate can be costly: for every miss, a competitor receives a one minute time penalty that is added to their overall skiing time.

I'm off to Toronto for the annual Sportsman Show, so won't be able to update my blog until I return Friday...cheers, Claudia

Canada's first Paralympic medal at Cross Country !

Canadian Colette Bourgonje won the silver medal in today's women's sitting 10km cross country ski race, the first medal for Canada at the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Games, in a time of 31 minutes, 49.8 seconds.
Catch it live on CTV: http://www.ctvolympics.ca/paralympics/sports/cross-country-skiing/newsid=55284.html#bourgonje+wins+canadas+first+paralympic+medal

Brian McKeever's moment comes tomorrow !

Monday is the long-distance cross country event for the 2010 Paralympics. And it'll be Brian McKeever's time to shine. Guided by his brother Robin, who himself competed at the '98 Olympics in Nagano can still lay down some top ten Canadian results - important as not to slow his brother down in reaching a podium result:

"Guiding my brother Brian for the past seven years has led to some great times, some great races and some hilarious stories, but it has never been easy. " exclaims Robin.

The role of a guide seems rather simple — get the athlete to the finish line as fast as possible! Simple enough, however, this is dependent on the level of vision of the athlete you are guiding, which presents very different challenges. For a B1 classified skier (that is, totally blind), the guide — through verbal direction and without touching the athlete — has to keep the athlete on an undulating race course and away from competitors, trees, people, fences and television cameras along the course. Greatness is only achieved through an amazing bond of confidence between guide and athlete.

"Thankfully, trust is not an obstacle for me and Brian, who is a B3 classified skier and has around 8 per cent vision on a reading chart. It doesn’t seem like he has much vision, but he can make his way around a course without a guide pretty darn fast, and at times he has left me begging for mercy and dry heaving. He has asked me to go faster than my body would physically allow. Ah yes, my guiding challenge is simple!"

Standing Paralympics will be competing on the same red course as the Olympics. Grooming will start at midnight, as the snow continues to fall in Whistler. The 5km red course will be groomed for Free Technique with one classic track for the entire 5kms... the track is crucial for the Polish male skier who will double pole the entire 5km lap - four times for the 20km mens competition. He needs the track for support as both his legs are prosthetic. When I asked Dirk how he is able to double pole up the first steep incline out of the stadium he said "very well, and fast...his upper body is extremely strong, while his lower limbs are so light he doesn't have the same weight to push". Amazing - I plan to watch this event live at 10am for the Men and 12:25pm for the Women's 15km - 3 laps of the 5km red course.

Temperatures are dropping to -2 degrees C overnight bringing dry snow...but as Dirk said it isn't the same snow we are used to in the east...it's still 'heavy'...tons of humidity. "You can still make a good snowball."