First competition for Cross Country...

It's amazing how nervous we all were this morning arriving at WOP - it was the day to test the venue, five years of planning, training of staff and volunteers, test the race course, the grooming, the communication, the broadcasting, the timing systems, the spectator friendliness and flow as well as show off this incredible competition site.

The weather was horrible. It basically rained all night and through the early hours of the morning. They groomed with the snowmobile pulling ginzu groomers, which of course took twice as long as a large Pisten Bully. This was to disturb the snow as little as possible. Then early, still before dawn, the final tour with the "race base" on the 2.5 km blue race course. All seemed well, until the CC skiers arrived for their 8am official training were not pleased to hear their upper red course had not been 'salted'. This complaint then trickled down from the Jury, comprised of three TD's and Bente Skari, athletes rep. to Len Apedaile - chief of venue, to chief of course, Mike Edwards, to Dirk - chief of grooming and out to his crew in waiting...MAD rush to get the ski-doo's with spreaders up on the red course , let the Urea absorb the moisture and firm up...which takes 15-20 minutes - so cross country skiers could go out and train. This took no more than 45 minutes, and by 8:45am the upper race course was open to athletes.

Meanwhile at the ski jump, the warm-up jumps were starting at 9am. Then at 10am the official first portion of their 'duathalon' - jumping on the Normal jump.

At about 11am, the biathaletes were warming up on the north end of cross country and it started to rain - hard. A bit of wet snow, but mainly rain. Nordic Combined athletes were supposed to be able to warm-up on the blue 2.5km loop. A delay was requested to rake out two steep downhills and re-spread 'race base'. Now manually done, this takes a wee bit longer, thus another 45minute delay. By 11:45am, the NC skiers zoomed around their course. It was raining hard - not great at biathalon for spectators, or their racers, that need sharp vision to focus in on their targets. From the loud cheers we heard, it did not seem to 'dampen' any spirits....

At 1:45pm the leader from the jumping segment a FIN starts his race. 34 secs later Todd Ludwick from USA heads out, and soon after numerous other NC'rs in order of how well they jumped form a pack. Four laps of the 2.5km blue course, and race order changes quickly as stronger skiers work their way up the ladder. In the final lap, there are three US skiers in the lead pack. "a new coach, three years ago" has helped make the US a strong force to reckon with internationally. The French skier, Jason Lamy Chappuis passes Johnny Spillane, USA in the stadium for the Gold. Good fun to watch.

I cannot complete this day with out saying:

Yeah Alexandre Bilodeau !!!

You've broken the ice, parted the snow and glistened the path for all Canadian athletes here at the Vancouver2010 Games...Merci !