Cross Country Sprints

Today was Jen's first day at the Olympics. We got back from the airport late last night and had to be up early this morning to head up to Whistler for Cross Country sprints. We managed to find our bus easily enough. And this time they were happy to let me on rather than hitting me with bad news. It was a great drive up to Whistler. It really is a beautiful drive and I would recommend it for anyone who can get up here sometime. The best part was that the day was shaping up to be a sunny one.

We got up to Whistler and hiked in to the venue. I'm not kidding when I say we hiked. It was a surprisingly far walk in. When we got there the sides of the stadium portion were pretty full. We chose to walk up toward the upper loop. That way we could see them go by above us but also watch them come into the stadium for the final part of the sprint. It was so nice that I never had to put on my big jacket or my snow pants. I used them to sit on the snow between runs.

I have been out to Soldier Hollow for some smaller events but I had never seen anything like this. The crowd was nuts. Kikkan Randall from the USA had a huge fan club in black and bright pink. The back of the sweatshirts said "Kikkanimal Fan Club". I would love to know to get one of those. It turned out that Andy Newell's fan club from Vermont was behind us. First they send everyone out a few seconds apart to get a qualifying time. The USA had Kikkan Randall and Holly Brooks for the women and Andy Newell, Torin Koos, Simi Hamilton and Garrott Kuzzy for the men. Unfortunately, only Kikkan and Simi qualified for the sprints. I ran into John Farra (the U.S. Nordic Director) and he said that Andy had fallen. That was disappointing because Andy and Torin are the top guys for the USA, while Simi and Garrott have not been around as long. I believe this is the first Olympics for both of those guys. Despite that we were ready to cheer for Kikkan and Simi in the sprints!

John Farra and Me between runs.

If we thought the crowd was nuts for the qualifying runs it was even crazier for the actual sprints. Kikkan was in the first heat of quarterfinals. We had to wait through four more heats to see if she had made it to the semi's. Fortunately we heard her name announced last to make the next round. In the semi finals though our luck ran out. Kikkan did not make it to the final run. It was sad but still fun to watch the final race to see which women would win. Hopefully we'll see some Nordic medals in the next week or so. I never count these guys out.

Kikkan coming around the corner in the stadium.

After the women they moved right along into the quarter final runs for the men. Simi was in the fourth heat so we did not have to wait as long to see how he would fare. Unfortunately he did not make it into the semi's. The men's final was amazing. It was hard to tell who had crossed first. Both men pushed their skis across and ended up in a heap. It turns out that the Russians got the medal. But I believe they got gold and silver if I heard correctly.

Simi Hamilton on the far right at the start.

Simi #29 coming into the last corner.

Fun picture of Andy Newell going by in his qualifier.

Me & Jessica Jerome from the USA Women's Ski Jumping team.

(Hopefully next Olympics I will be cheering for her! She is headed to Japan to compete next week.)

Jen and Me at XC Sprints

It was a gorgeous drive back down the mountain to Vancouver. I enjoyed watching all the water falls coming down the mountains. We stopped at a grocery to pick up some things for our condo and then headed to dinner. Since Jen is the only person coming to Vancouver with me who will eat Sushi we had to get some this evening.

When we got back to our condo I turned on the Olympics but could only find the final run of Halfpipe in French. Fortunately I do not need English to understand that Shaun White kicked butt and Scotty Lago got third. What a great night for Snowboarding! It was also a great and historic day for women's alpine. They finally got to have their first race with the downhill and Lindsey Vonn won gold and Julia Mancuso won silver. Way to go Alpine!

Tomorrow it looks like the women will have the Super Combined so watch for Lindsey Vonn and Kaylin Richardson. Not sure who else might compete for the USA. There is also Women's Halfpipe. It will be great to see Kelly Clark, Hannah Teter and Gretchen Bleiler take on the world along with teammate Elena Hight. According to the coverage in Vancouver the girls will have to watch out for the Chinese tomorrow night. We'll see what happens. Jen and I are headed to curling. We will get to see the USA Women take on Denmark.