Location: Whistler Olympic Park - Callaghan Valley
Event: 2010 Olympic Winter Games!!
Welcome to Salomon Nordic's Olympic Blog...
Over the next few weeks, I'm going to attempt a 'behind the scenes' look at these Games from Salomon's perspective. If there's something particular that you are interested in, please comment below and we'll do our best to get you the answers! Either way, sitting shotgun at the big 'O' show can only be a recipe for 'Good Times'!
Day -1...
The first Nordic races are not even under way but already Salomon Racing Service has been very hard at work sorting, mounting, distributing and testing literally hundreds of pairs of skis!
The team is comprised of 4 techs: Bertrand Regard, Patrice Frisson and myself (Phil V) on the Nordic side. For Biathlon, Anthony Marguet is the head tech and although he has his own service cabin at the biathlon area, we do combine efforts to get the job done. Also joining us today was Community Manager and media guru, Andy Gerlach who will be reporting live feeds for Salomon Nordic on Facebook, Twitter and www.salomonracing.com.
A quick recap so far...Everyday has been jammed packed with lots of work as all the nations are trying to sort out their own athletes' skis so they can get plenty of testing in before the races begin...With all the major brands bringing hundreds of new skis to the Games, our job is to mount the Salomon athletes' skis with the appropriate binding.
Event: 2010 Olympic Winter Games!!
Welcome to Salomon Nordic's Olympic Blog...
Over the next few weeks, I'm going to attempt a 'behind the scenes' look at these Games from Salomon's perspective. If there's something particular that you are interested in, please comment below and we'll do our best to get you the answers! Either way, sitting shotgun at the big 'O' show can only be a recipe for 'Good Times'!
Day -1...
The first Nordic races are not even under way but already Salomon Racing Service has been very hard at work sorting, mounting, distributing and testing literally hundreds of pairs of skis!
The team is comprised of 4 techs: Bertrand Regard, Patrice Frisson and myself (Phil V) on the Nordic side. For Biathlon, Anthony Marguet is the head tech and although he has his own service cabin at the biathlon area, we do combine efforts to get the job done. Also joining us today was Community Manager and media guru, Andy Gerlach who will be reporting live feeds for Salomon Nordic on Facebook, Twitter and www.salomonracing.com.
A quick recap so far...Everyday has been jammed packed with lots of work as all the nations are trying to sort out their own athletes' skis so they can get plenty of testing in before the races begin...With all the major brands bringing hundreds of new skis to the Games, our job is to mount the Salomon athletes' skis with the appropriate binding.
Patrice and PV mounting the new Propulse Classic binding on skisThe 'hot' new binding being launched for these Games is the SNS Propulse. This binding is very light and provides a great kick feel due to its low profile position on the ski - actually, your foot now sits directly on the ski! As a result of the bindings increased performance, the team has mounted hundreds (and hundreds of new skis, as well as swapping bindings on all the older race skis!
Check it out...the new SNS Propulse RC!
In between mounting bindings, there's ski testing...With a few key Salomon skiers vying for podiums, it's out job to widdle down the skis we brought to Whistler, separate the best ones for each temperature range, and feed them back to the athletes team for further testing (more on this later).
The weather (yes, the weather...) has been miserable so far. One word: W-E-T. Ugh... The high humidity and almost constant precipitation has made it prime conditions to test the new Zero base skis (waxless or 'rub' skis). Yesterday, we literally took an belt sander with a 120 grit paper and went to town on the base. After a while I told Bertrand: "Hey, ease off a bit...It's not a damn IKEA table!"...he's French, so he didn't get it...I thought the hairs would be too fine, but it actually work very well...15km later, I was completely soaked, but the skis were still kicking great. I delivered them to Ivan Babikov's technician for further comparison - turns out it slotted in as a potential top pair - cool!
OK - late night here in Whistler...time to head to bed and get ready for another day tomorrow.
Get set...The Games start tomorrow!
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ReplyDeleteThiese games seems to be very exciting. I have to know if I can Buy Viagra in the same place I can buy a pair of Salomon skies. Definitely it is the best brand for people who like skiing.
ReplyDelete