It's late at night...your walking home from 'downtown' Whistler, and you stumble across these silent characters...makes you wonder.
Well, it's been a few long days since my last 'daily' recap. No matter how you look at it, 3 weeks on the go is a long time, and I simply got very tired by the end of my stint. All in anticipation of the 'Race of Kings', the men's 50km classic (and the 30km race of Queens for that matter) . And what a performance it was...If anyone watched the race, you know what I'm talking about.
Women's 30km...While all the action was focused on the final dual between Poland's Justina Kowalczyk and Norway's Marit Bjorgen, our Salomon crew had their eyes (and hope) on a silent skier making gains right behind. Japan's Masako Ishida has shown before that she has the talent and engine to finish on the podium, and we all had our fingers crossed! With 3 ski exchanges (using 3 different pairs of skis), she managed to climb back in contention late in the race with a strong last lap, and post a Olympic best 5th place, only seconds behind the podium - What a race for her!
As for the men's 50km...The race did not disappoint. Joel, Bertrand, Ivan and myself went out about an hour before the race to finalize the ski selection and 2 pairs were identified as the ones he would use for the race - Since the 50km now allows for 'pit' ski exchanges (you can exchange your skis up to 3 times), it's important to have a minimum of 2 pairs available. The tracks were very icy, but the skis proved fast and with great kick - I was excited! Of course, we expected our 'Salomon' boy to post another strong result as he tends to excel in long distance events, but this was not his day. Despite having fast boards under his feet, the klister conditions simply did not bode well for his style of skiing and coupled with a long 2 weeks of racing, he just couldn't kick his skis properly, struggling with kick for over 30kms of the race. A similar story affected Alex Harvey and both fell out of contention at the midway point.
Since the weather outside was miserable, I took advantage of the Canadian tech team's TV to watch the action from inside. From here, I was also witness to the high action drama going inside the actual wax room! As the skiers came in for their ski exchange, the techs would run the skis back to the wax cabin, tag team the glide first by reapplying powder and then gels. A quick exchange and into another tech's table to finetune the kick - and back out the door in less than 10min! Quite the production.
Watching the action from Team Canada's wax cabin! High drama inside and out!
Meanwhile...the other half of the men's team (Grey and Kershaw) lived up to the challenge of the world's best and hung in the final pack right to the end, with Kershaw sprinting for the win, and falling 1.6seconds short of the Gold, in 5th place - another Olympic best!
So what's the final verdict on the 2010 Olympics Games? The racing action, the weather, the people and personalities and of course my tech-mates made these 20 days some of the most memorable racing moments I've ever encountered. I can only hope to be part of another event of this magnitude in my lifetime - I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Time to pack up - Joel Knopff loads up Babikov's skate skis - Time to head home.
Frise lifts up a bundle of boots that were all knotted up together - It took me 45min to untangle this mess!
Team Canada Tech Yves Bilodeau takes a load off after a long 3-weeks, these boys have been hard at work and pulled off some impressive results. Oh, don't mind the dead thing on this head...
