"Gutt price, gutt price"...
Ever tried to barter with an Armenian? First, a bit of background to help explain...
If you ever get a chance to enter one of the manufacturers' cabins at a major event, you'll be dumbfounded by the amount of gear they bring along. In addition to supporting their international teams skiers, ski companies always allocate extra equipment (boots, bindings, skis, poles, wax, etc...) in their shipments to accommodate the needs/demands from 'exotic' countries that only attend major events. For example...Bermuda, Peru, Brazil, Turkey, Algeria, Ethiopia to name a few, don't have many nordic shops to choose from (really?), or proper nordic equipment distribution, so their competitors, coaches, techs, use the Games to outfit their team upon arrival. Each take their turn to tour the brand manufacturers' cabins in an attempt to buy as much equipment/materials as possible with their limited (often non-existent) budgets - Getting the 'lowest price' is often very critical.
As we were setting up the day for ski testing, one of the coaches of the Armenian Ski Team entered our cabin wanting to barter for equipment. After perusing through our cabin, he spotted some of our used/broken bindings supply accumulating in a box in the corner. He turned to Bertrand and in what sounded like bits of Russian asked: "How much?". Bertrand didn't want these used/half-broken bindings getting out in the market with the chances of coming back to haunt a dealer, so he said "NO". This was not an acceptable answer for the coach - More and more he pressed...Frise and I were giggling away in the background waxing skis...It was pretty funny listening to Bertrand try to deal with him as he simply would not take "NO" for an answer - How could this Frenchman not want to barter? Bertrand refused - Eventually the Armenian went away...
Exactly 3 minutes later, he showed up at the door with a bottle of Armenia's finest Cognac. "We trade, Cognac for bindings" he insisted. Bertrand shook his head in frustration...
The early morning laughs set the tone for a good day with our crew - Bertrand and Frise sifting through the skis to see what we should test
Testing, testing, testing...
Frise and Joel enjoying a sunny break - I much prefer testing skis in sunny blue blazer days, then CV's typical wet days!
Today was all about...yes, you guessed it...testing. What is 'testing'? Testing skis is basically taking a fleet of skis all prepared with the same wax, and finding out which one is the best on that particular day. The goal is to widdle down the selection to 2 or 3 pairs, so that the athlete in question can show up an hour before his/her start and test the best of the lot. In an ideal world, the snow conditions/weather on the day you test (typically the day before) will be similar to the following day's conditions - Unfortunately, we don't live in an 'ideal world'.
Most of the morning was spent skiing our own skis, and doing laps around the 'short' loop to gather information on our warm flex skis. Then as the time neared actual race time for the next 2 days' Pursuit events, we hooked up with techs from our international team racers to help them in their selection.
While Frise worked with the Japanese Ski Team (for female racer Masako Ishida), I teamed up with Joel Knopff of the Canadian Ski Team to select the best skis for Ivan Babikov's 30km event on Saturday. First we started on classic (8 pairs), and then moved on to skating (another 8 pairs). Each round consisted of Joel and I having half-pairs under our feet, feeling for which one would be fastest - After a 2km loop, We would each take a full pair and from a mark at the top of the hill, see which pair would glide the furthest. The process was repeated multiple times running each ski head to head and eliminating the slowest every time. At the end of the day, we found 2 great pairs of skate skis, and one very good pair of classic klister skis.
But let's put this in perspective...Just because we eliminated all the others doesn't mean that these aren't good skis - We're looking for skis potential of Olympic Podium! In other words, even Ivan's worst pair of skis (skate and classic), would most likely be the fastest pair you have ever skied on!
At the end of a long day...I caught these 2 buses being loaded up with hundreds of Police Officers! These are amongst the 8,000 Policemen/women that are scattered between Vancouver and Whistler!
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