Day 6: Crash of the Day!

Now that was a crash...

Yesterday we woke up to snowballs falling from the sky - this morning was a stereotypical Canmore Blue-Blazer...a la Whistler style! After one of the wettest weeks I've experienced in a long time, today the skies were clear and the sun was shinning - perfect day for a 'mot-or car race'...or XC race.

So here I was doing the usual athlete pre-race ski test session with speedster Stefan Kuhn at the bottom (halfway) point of the course when I catch a fast motion out of the corner of my eye - fast skier going off the track and into the bush...

I looked over and only saw a tree branch swaying...what the??

I turned back to Joel Knopff, and said: "Did somebody just go over the edge?"...At that same moment, local coach Lee Churchill, who was on the spectator side of the fence, yelled something at me that was drowned out by the noise of the growing crowds - but then it clicked. Someone did go over the edge! All of this happened withing 5 seconds or so...but I was on the move, and skied over to the edge of what was a steep creek bed/ravine/tree hole - whatever it was, it was deep and there was a skier at the bottom of it - screaming!

Looking down into the creek bed - the dark spot is Majdic's landing zone...This is a least 3 to 4m down!

Check out the CRASH VIDEO HERE.

The skier in question was Petra Majdic, the World Cup Sprint leader! I made my way down as fast as possible to assist, not knowing what to expect...broken bones? bleeding? The thought of taking a first-aid class crossed my mind...a bit late now.

Petra was screaming in pain. As I came up to her, I noticed that her leg was in an awkward position, and immediately thought it was broken - hence the screaming. But she was riggling around, trying to get her ski untangled from the snow/tree. Her other foot still had the binding on it, ripped right off the ski. I unclipped her ski, and she immediately started getting up (a good sign I suppose) yelling: "Get me to the start!".

I could tell what she was thinking..."...I've got 30min to my start, I've crashed, I'm hurt, my chances of winning are gone!" Adrenaline was surging through her body...

I struggled to get out of the creek myself, having to punch boot holes in the frozen snow to climb back out. I turned around and with the help of a volunteer, we managed to pull/push her out back onto the course. Majdic was anxious to get back to the start and wanted nothing to do with emergency support - "I have to go to the start!". I grabbed her skis and followed her up the course, walking along the course - until her coach/tech met up with her a few hundred metres later. I passed on the broken equipment to him...and that was that.

Wow. I took a deep breath, hoped back on Stef's warmup skis and went back to the start area. Still in a daze about what had just happened, I saw young Andrew Musgrave (GBR) looking down at his 2 test pairs of skis. "Hey Andrew, do you need any help to test?" He looked up: "Yeah, sure...that would be great". Off we went...

Squish the blimp...squish it!


The camera rig that follows the racers up the hill

Racing Action...

The sprints were great. Stef qualified in 10th and skied very strong in the heats. This was the strongest I've seen him double-pole to the finish ever! Unfortunately, he was roughed up in one of the turns by a Russian (that eventually finished 2nd) which may have cost him. Technically, some would have argued that the Russian 'should' have been DSQ'd...but he wasn't, and Stef was eliminated, relegated to 15th. Not a bad result for your first O-Games.

Other N-A Results:
Women: Kikkan Randall (USA) - 8th; Daria Gaiasova - 22; Chandra Crawford - 26; Sara Renner - 34; Holly Brooks (USA) - 38; Perianne Jones - 41;

Men: Devon Kershaw - 23; Simeon Hamilton - 29; Torin Koos - 36; Drew Goldsack - 40; Brent McMurtry - 41; Andrew Newell - 45 (crashed); Garrott Kuzzy - 47