XC Event

Entering the venue. Powder blue jackets and skies.



The flags and final corner before the double-pole finish.



Crowds line the course one and a half meters from the closet track.



Kikkan Randall flies by during the sprint qualification.



... and passing by with picture-perfect technique. Arriving in plenty of time; the skiers are testing wax, warming up.
Last minute tickets from Correy.

I’m so excited for this event.
To reconnect with my skiing self, the cross-country scene and everything it entails. Nordic gods. The excitement of sprints, qualifications, the drama of finishing.

There isn’t much time to capture the experience with words, nor a desire. This is something I just want to live through – plus, the skiers pass so quickly at the spot I’ve wedged into (between a group of Frenchmen and Americans from Vermont and Alaska) that only a few pictures are managed each time.

Before the woman’s race starts, one of the Alaskans I recognized from a past life was Rob Whitney of the Subaru Factory Team. Being colloquially called “Rob” by the Alaskan-flag wearing friend clicked something in my mind; so I asked him if I’d seen him from somewhere; West Yellowstone maybe? And then my mind kept working as I was talking with him and realized he had been with the team.

At Whistler Olympic Park he was handing out “Go Holly!” stickers in support of his wife, Holly Brooks, attempting to qualify for the Quarterfinals of the women’s sprint (classic technique). We talk a little Alaskan politics.



Holly skiing past us -- Rob wedged in for a picture (he's cropped out).

The view allows us to see the finish, the skiers going down the hill coming up from the start in the stadium, and the up-close shots of them passing by before re-entry through the last big turn into the stadium.

The men's turn to ski.



Andy Newell (#2) -- who failed to qualify, unfortunately.



Torin Koos (#28) transitioning from double pole to diagonal stride.



Simi Hamilton #(42) double-poling through the slight uphill section below.



(#48) Kuzzy!!!



The Official Kikkan Randall fan club. Rob is in the top right, back row.



The Norway section!



Looking out at the final downhill curve before entering the stadium.



Patrick Bateman makes an appearance.



Norwegian Marit Bjorgen in a qualifying heat.



Petter Northug (#6). (For J. Marcos).

Lifestyle (as a luge spectator)

Caption: Concessions, I guess, are common to Canada as well.

I make it up to the luge -- the first one blows the mind; it takes an entire heat to master taking two photographs worth publishing.


A Canadian suit.

An American suit...
Caption: A group of fans line the course -- taking in the action.

Caption: One of the iconic curves of the course. Spectators can see the athlete entering, passing through the apex and exiting into a flat from this curve.


And then some stuff you don't normally see on T.V --

Caption: WSC Course Crew flood and tend to the track in between heats -- taking about 15 minutes. "FOP" stands for field-of-play.

Some of the other teams in attendance --

Lichtenstein: Plain black? Not very interesting.



Austria: Typically scary.



The Italians: Stylish.



And finally the event is over. After running out of batteries, it becomes a mission to find some after walking down to the gondola base from the event. On my way through the Village, some different lighting this time, new perspective.

Omega's Bobsled Car.



Making my way back up to the Gondola Exchange (where the USA-SWI game had started before I refreshed my batteries) I saw this shot in my head. A fan watches the Game from the HD Screen below the base of Whistler Mountain.



Time for the Medal's Ceremony to start. People stream by and wait in the queue for entrance into the celebration after the medals are awarded.

Three Days of Olympic Opportunity

2-16-2010; 12:08, from notes:

Riding on the Games Express #10 bus from the Athlete’s Village, heading to pick up the luge ticket from Kyla and return to the sliding centre from there via the Excalibur Gondola.

The travel is always different to Whistler, somehow. Today I asked Dylan, a housemate, if he could drop me off at Walmart so I could take the bus up to Whistler. As we’re leaving I spot a Blue Jacket waiting at a bus stop – a bus stop where no busses run from 09:00 – 14:00 during the day.

“Would you like a ride to Walmart?” “Absolutely,” she says, and hops in the VW Golf.

No need for introductions here, yet, people generally are who they say they are and turns out she has a car parked nearby – so Dylan turns around to enjoy his day off, I hop in the car with the stranger who hopped in ours, I introduce myself.

Jane and I, then, as only those who were once strangers and have now become fast friends do, enjoy a pleasant ride up to Whistler (Function Junction, to be more precise) as she works in the Village. Things keep flowing together nicely for me –

(A man had done the same for me at the same bus stop – seeing me in my Blue Jacket, looking anxious about a bus arriving, graciously picked me up, so it was clear in the order of things for the day that the woman was at least receiving a ride from our car).

A walk through Whistler, almost daily now, my new posh home ($5.25 for one can of Red Bull) towards the Sliding Centre. Caption: A group of Americans from Washington State walk through the Whistler Marketplace en route to a bar to continue watching Team USA Hockey.

Caption: Two RCMP (Mounties, eh) pose for pictures. Caption: The Olympic Rings, Whistler Village (near the Brewhouse and Medal's Plaza).

Caption: The Estonian flag-walkers proudly display their flags high above the sea of people within the Village and the events.

With a camera in hand it becomes hard to write and vice-versa with a notebook, so I resume capturing the pulse of Whistler Village around 19:00. The Olympic Anthem plays first for the Medal’s Ceremony – I’ve got the budget seats: behind the fence, behind the screen, and no view of the stage in a pavillon outside of the Brewhouse (Whistler, but I’m getting tired of writing Whistler, because everything comes with that proper noun in front of it here – Whistler Olympic Park, Whistler Village, Whistler Sliding Centre, Whistler Live, etc. etc.)

Snowboard cross is being presented down in Vancouver (the American wins gold) and the Vancouver Music, as I call it, plays.

And then, much to my surprise, Cory and Kara Salmela wander into the same little spot. Cory (for those here, not there) is announcing with NBC Universal; Kara was a 2002 Olympian in Biathlon.

In Duluth stopping these two at Snowflake is maybe acceptable for making a shy introduction – but probably not in the passing by at Mount Royal, for example.

But here, Duluth is a binding glue -- more than being a Minnesotan as the first step. So far I haven’t met many other Minnesotans – one from Eden Prairie – but it is more common to identify with “almost Thunder Bay” and “northwestern Ontario” because, well, nobody knows it and I don’t know Toronto proper nor its plethora of suburbs in the east. I’m improving.

Being an American here is purely satisfying (usually, and I do admit with a slight bashful glee) because it is quite possible to approach nearly anyone, anywhere and ask them where they’re from “in the States.” As I reveal my location – perhaps it matches with theirs, likely it doesn’t, I think about approaching the same people back home and the reaction.

Common answers to my question so far have been Washington State, Wyoming, Vermont (but those are just the Andy Newell fans, munching peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and offering them up to people).

So I’ll preview tomorrow (today’s later) post with this image I sent to Duluth Pack via Twitter: an old satchel, making me very proud to see at the Winter Games and be an American, a Duluthian, a Minnesotan – a pride I have not felt back in those places, at times.

Canada 2010: Torch Relay (2)

The Canadian National Anthem is sung by local students, grades four through twelve, a multi-school choir. “Future leaders of Canada! Strive to be your best!” the announcer says after Kristin McBride has transferred the torch on stage; the announcer is referencing McBride’s involvement with the pre-schoolers, encouraging the youth of Canada.

“The flame is the symbol for igniting the passion, connecting you with your passion,” the Squamish mayor says, adding, “This moment feels real! The heart of 2010 is right here in Squamish!”

It is a pivotal point; for everyone. The Games are finally here – almost. Certain hiccups have popped up – transportation, some logistics, but, for those in attendance, tonight is time to laud those who have supported the Games with Vanoc through the homestay programs, the set up crew for the Torch Ceremonies (acknowledging most of the work has been done by locals), but also a political moment for the MPLA and local politicians. “Go Canada Go!” the politicians make sure to say as they conclude their speeches.

Enter Chief Gibby Jacob, a Board Member of Vanoc and member of the Squamish First Nation. He’s asked about what the atmosphere of the crowd is like tonight.

“[It’s]Taking our breath away! This is the homecoming! We are so humbled to be here!”

The torch will live on in Squamish with a torch like those the relay team used donated to the city.The atmosphere is “all positive, all celebrative” of the 106 consecutive day, 1035-Canadian strong Torch Relay.

“How are people feeling in Vanoc?” he’s asked by the announcer.

“Two thumbs up – we’re ready to rock and roll in Vancouver!”

A day later in Whistler, the Village is electrified by its presence, I watch during dinner, ten minutes on foot away as CTV covers the event from their plaza, recently erected to conduct nightly broadcasts.

People cannot help but be excited. The Games are four days away. It is their twelve-day Superbowl, the people in the Sea-to-Sky have been waiting for this week since 2003, pro and anti-Games alike.

Pique Poetry

Thinking about dates and time
as I write some more angry West Coast prose.
"Why do I keep writing zeros first, dating important things,
completing it with a nine, it feels like I'm going backwards."

It is one plus zero.
So if I hear anyone write in with snarky cynicism,
or quote "green" or "sustainable" like it is a joke,
one more time, I may lose it,
my patience for this experience.

For I am already forced to think another four years in advance.
I will be twenty five, going on twenty six, my golden birthday.
Celebrated, as I finish my time in Sochi, the new ambition, the Plan,
capitalized, only to fall apart?

That is what I have learned of capital plans,
they are soon forgotten; much like this sense of cynicism.
Maybe I came too late. Maybe jealousy abounds in Whistler.
Think of "green" in four years.

The paradigm, to use it incorrectly, shifts every second of your life, maybe.
So what is two weeks?
For me: a blue uniform, free lunch, contacts, future.
Some names in a book this time; a trial of independence.
Take your cynicism: put it into man's short common conscious,
the five ring circus quickly forgotten. Beijing? Birdsnest? 100m butterfly?
Right. Consider me an implant on Highway 99.

No - more whining please.
It gives me four more years of thought.

Re: Pedal to the Floor

..."BC" was no longer a figment on a map for us but a reality of place. British Columbia, for those of you who haven't been, has a different Canadian vibe than that of Ontario -- the Canadian essence, if you will, is still captured but you can sense that the BC folk are clearly a northerly extension of West Coast Thought.

Then, recollections from journals, "we are trying to do it a cheaply as possible - the "dirtbag" approach as Fischer has called it. The drive up Highway 99 from Vancouver to Squamish was unlike anything I've ever seen before. It is literally one of the more spectacular drives as a driver that I have ever seen -- towering mountains across Howe Sound and right along the road, and then water which stretches the 60 or so kilometers from Vancouver. The afternoon light was just perfect."

So much, so quickly to capture for our four-day bouldering trip. On our "rest day," I spent most of the time recording most of this into a journal near the RBC overlooking Cleveland Ave, the main drag of downtown Squamish.

July 5- Sitting at the corner of Cleveland Ave/Winnipeg St, at the Squamish City Center during some fingertip regeneration time. The insurance building is to my left, blocking the view to anything further north. Look east are mountains (straight ahead) as I sit on a little bench with the Grand Wall further to my right. A precipitious mountain is to my right with snow still on the peak. Cam is in the Vanagon in the parking lot ahead of me and my coffee is nearly gone. Time do be done for now."

There is much to tell about, link to you, and think about in this second trip to this amazing town.

I hope my journalism/blogging will keep you interested and informed during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games come and go, quickly, there is a lot to talk about; I'm steering as far away from an "I/we" -- based experience as possible for everyone -- let me know if I'm failing.

Pondering even the method of travel to Canada: A two-and-a-half day trainride though Canada versus a three hour flight from Minneapolis to Seattle ... followed days later by a three and a half hour drive north -- brings perspective new and definitely refreshing... that's maybe one point of "departure" to narrate this experience.