Sprints

The predicted weather actually came through. We woke to clear skies, and solid tracks. Time to 'charge it' on the two downhill corners with total confidence or deal with the consequences....like Slovenian skier Petra Madjic on one of her warm-up laps. She fell off the turn and went right over the edge...luckily between two trees and into a deep tree well. Not only shaken, I believe she suffered an injury and was transported off the snow by the first aid crew. Straight back to post the 19th fastest qualification time, the determination to overcome her fall brought her the bronze medal. Other than the Canadians, Petra was the crowd favourite, which must have provided additional support for this heroic exploit.

Met the forerunner crew at 8am in the athlete's Day Lodge - check out their pre-event nutrition choices...

Each morning the marshals meet for our daily outline. Our chief of marshal's, Susan Denny who's ski world normally centre's itself on Vancouver Island's Mt Washington is a great leader and fun to work for.

The Sprint course couldn't have been better. It set up very well - solid tracks - most likely a klister base overwaxed - but then, I'm not privy to this info...and it seems to held closely locked away in the multitude of wax trailers. At this level of competition, teams not only have a wax tech team, but two completely seperate teams - one for glide wax and the other for grip wax. It's been rumoured that the Norwegians have a team of 22 wax service support crew for XC alone.

The qualification round seemed to go by extremely quickly. First the women, then the men. Canadians who qualified for the Heats were a bit different than expected. In the women, Sara Renner caught a chinese skier right before the finish corner that definitely caused her some trouble. Both her and Peri had strong splits where I was marshaling - top of the first climb. Peri mentioned afterwards, that she didn't feel her double poling through the stadium was as it should have been. It was great to have Canadians in the Heats - congrats on strong qualifyiers for Dasha and Chandra as well as Stefan Kuhn and Devon Kershaw in the men's race.

Norwegian Marit Bjoergen dominated the heats, skiing far out front on the Quarter final and the Semi, but it was a battle with Polish Justyna Kowalczyk who led for 2/3rds of the Final, she made her move on Canada's corner to a convincing finish. Having met Marit in Silverstar at the World Cup 4 years back, I was pleased to see this powerful, yet unbelievably warm, friendly and humble skier back on top of her sport.

In the men's Stefan Kuhn almost landed the 'lucky loser' position for the Semi's. In World Cups and Olympics, the heats are timed - so the LL is chosen based on their heat times (not the Qualification as we do at the provincial and national level). Norway had three men in the Finals and were dreaming of a potential medal sweep - but the two Russian's wouldn't hear of it. A close photo finish with Nikita Kriukov taking the Gold.

From the organizing side - this day was a good one. So good, we all got off work a wee bit early - in time to see the Barenaked Ladies perform live in Whistler Village.