Olympic Parade in Park City

Park City, UT hosted a parade yesterday for their Local and Adopted Olympians. It started at the top of Main Street and worked its way down to the Town Lift. There were skiers, bobsledders, short track speed skaters, Paralympic skiers and sledge hockey medalists. I went over with my friend Chelsea and Anna found us before the parade started. We had a nice spot across from the Egyptian Theatre. The whole parade took about 15 minutes to pass us by. Afterward they were doing autographs down by the Town Lift but we did not stick around. I'm going to take my chances of seeing them at the office.

Parade Begins

Congrats sign that wouldn't hold still in the wind.

Steve Nyman

Alpine

Steve Nyman and Hailey Duke (in white)

Alpine

Ted Ligety and Meghan McJames
Alpine

Bill Schuffenhauer
Bobsled



Emily Cook, Lacy Schnoor, Scotty Bahrke, Ryan St. Onge
Aerials




Scotty Bahrke, Ryan St. Onge & Speedy Peterson (silver medal)
Aerials



Heather McPhie
Moguls



Shannon Bahrke (Silver in 2002, Bronze in 2010)
Moguls




Bryon Wilson (Bronze medal) & Nate Roberts
Moguls



Brett Camerotta (Silver), Anders Johnson (Jumping), Billy Demong (Gold, Silver)
Nordic Combined

Brett, Anders, Billy

Short Track Speed Skaters

Travis Jaynor, Bronze medal

Sledge Hockey Gold Medalist Greg Shaw

Future Olympians

Future Hockey Olympians

Text of Bill Demong's Speech at Olympic Parade

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise published the text of Billy's speech. Very well done!

http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/511651.html

SARANAC LAKE - Since Friday's parade and ceremony honoring the local athletes who competed at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, the Enterprise has been asked to print the full text of the speech delivered at the Harrietstown Town Hall by Olympian Bill Demong of Vermontville.
Demong, who captured gold and silver medals in nordic combined at the Vancouver games, spoke on behalf of the eight other athletes who participated in the welcome-home celebration and were sitting on the stage.

"I feel like my life came full circle today when I drove up here from New York City. I watched the snow accumulate as we turned off the highway down near Keene and started up through the mountains, through the Cascade Lakes and eventually turned that corner when the ski jumps break out into view.

"This is the place where I grew up. I grew up in Vermontville, and at one point in my life lived down the road from Tim Burke, three houses away and six miles or whatever.

"A lot of memories have come flooding back to me and maybe it's because I'm about to turn 30. During the Olympics it was already starting to happen. It seemed like I started to reconnect with more people in this community during the games, before the medal, than afterwards. It seemed like so many people reached out in Facebook, in text messages and over the phone, and I had the time. You guys watched the Olympics, and it looks like a lot of partying and a lot of crazy stuff going on, but these guys and us know that the Olympic Village is a place to put your feet up, sleep 10 hours a day, keep your head down and keep focused.

"As I came into town, it was by far the most emotional moment as everything started to come full circle for me: to remember my first ski race at Mount Van Hoevenburg, to remember going out with all these great friends of mine and learning how to ski at Dewey Mountain at night, and to remember my first jumps over in Lake Placid.

"It's so inspiring to me to think of all the people in this room that have contributed to the effort that I've put in along the way. I feel so fortunate to have been the guy who got the medal, but really it's all of you channeling all the things you had to give as coaches and teachers, as parents who drove us to practice, as peers that pushed us at training to get it done.

"People keep asking me what it feels like. For me, it was like I won a ski race. That's what I've been training to do forever. But I'm one of the thousands of people in this country that are enthusiastic about nordic sports. I'm one of the hundreds or a thousand people in this room who have waited 86 years for this thing. I feel so fortunate to have helped in that dream. I want to thank everybody here. This is the one room in the world where everybody has some, 'Boy, do you remember when Billy did that stupid thing?' story. Yet, you guys have all contributed to my success along the way.

"If there's one thing I truly hope comes out of this medal, I hope more kids and more people get out and try these sports that we love to do here in the North Country. When I was your age and I watched the Olympic Games, the highlight of the Bill Koch festival in 1994 was watching Todd Lodwick, my teammate - and that's how old he is - get 13th place. That was the nordic highlight of the Olympics for me and for a lot of people. That was our expectation. You carry that with you. That's what Americans do: They get 13th place at the Olympics, and that's pretty darn good. But we just killed the Olympics.

"I hope all you kids put that in the back of your head because I guarantee a lot more of these guys up here are going to be doing this in the future, too. Put that in the back of your head when you think about what you want to be. If you're a cross-country skier, if you're anything in sports - Americans kick butt. We are good at this. I hope that this medal, that these medals, go into the collective consciousness of these children and that someday this will be thought of as the beginning of nordic domination for the United States.

"I want to thank everyone in this room, and hopefully each person one at a time in the future, for helping me get here and helping all of us get here. It's such an incredible journey. I hope you all feel like you're a part of it because you are. So thank you."

Ski and Snowboarding Medalists

2010 U.S. OLYMPIC SKI AND SNOWBOARDING TEAM MEDALS:

Gold
Billy Demong, Nordic Combined Large Hill
Hannah Kearney, Moguls
Bode Miller, Super Combined
Lindsey Vonn, Downhill
Seth Wescott, Snowboardcross
Shaun White, Halfpipe

Silver
Brett Camerota, Nordic Combined Team Event
Billy Demong, Nordic Combined Team Event
Todd Lodwick, Nordic Combined Team Event
Julia Mancuso, Downhill
Julia Mancuso, Super Combined
Bode Miller, Super G
Jeret "Speedy" Peterson, Aerials
Johnny Spillane, Nordic Combined Normal Hill
Johnny Spillane, Nordic Combined Team Event
Johnny Spillane, Nordic Combined Large Hill
Hannah Teter, Halfpipe

Bronze
Shannon Bahrke, Moguls
Kelly Clark, Halfpipe
Scotty Lago, Halfpipe
Bode Miller, Downhill
Lindsey Vonn, Super G
Andrew Weibrecht, Super G
Bryon Wilson, Moguls

Articles as the Olympics End

Some interesting takes on things as the Olympics ended last night.

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=dw-winnerslosers022810&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/27/AR2010022703315.html

Wrapping Up

The Olympics aren't over until Sunday but my adventures ended this morning when I crossed back over to the USA. Thankfully that border crossing was the nicest yet. Despite some of the chaos and frustrations I was sorry to see my Olympic trip end. But I am thrilled that it ended with seeing Speedy win his silver last night. I forgot to post the picture below with the rest after the event. I'm calling it the "Star Brigade" in honor of the freestyle uniforms. With that many members of the staff/team standing together to cheer on the guys you started seeing stars!

Star Brigade

The downside to attending the Olympics is that you miss a lot of the stories. I just saw tonight on NBC that Kris Freeman collapsed during his 30k race due to his blood sugar. (Kris is a type 1 diabetic.) One of the German coaches ran over to him with an energy drink. Kris refused to give up and continued to ski. He finished last but he finished! I also learned that the day I was at the Cross Country sprints that one of the athletes had fallen into a gulch on the side of the course during warm ups. She insisted on racing and won the bronze. It turns out she raced with broken ribs and a collapsed lung. That is some amazing spirit! In the news today it was also announced that Billy Demong (first Nordic Combined gold medalist) was elected by his fellow athletes to carry the flag in the closing ceremony. And my rookie, Hailey Duke, finished 30th in her first Olympic race. Way to go Hailey! For anyone who only follows skiing every four years during the Olympics you might have expected to see Lindsey Vonn become the "Michael Phelps" of these games. That is media hype that Lindsey never promised. (Just like Bode never promises to do more than go out there and give it everything.) Lindsey always said that if she won even one medal she would be happy. In the end she won a gold and a bronze and that ain't bad! I would also like to thank Sports Illustrated and Yahoo Sports for doing such a horrible job predicting the medal results. Maybe it gave our athletes a bit of motivation to prove them wrong.

The Olympics aren't over. Saturday there is Men's Slalom, Men's PGS and Women's Cross Country 30k. On Sunday there will be Men's Cross Country 50k, plus a great Men's Hockey final. But I am in Seattle now and heading toward home and my next adventure. I only have four years to figure out how to get someone to take me to Sochi so I don't have to plan that trip! See everyone in Park City!

GO USA!

SPEEDY WINS SILVER!!!!

Today was all about the Men's Aerials. After last night and the mess getting to Women's Aerials my goal was to get there early. We took the bus into town, got lunch and then headed over on the seabus. When we got to Londsdale Quay they said I was too early. But after we picked up some waters we tried again. One guy said we couldn't go until 4:35 which was almost 2 hours away. Another said we could go. We decided we liked him and went for it. They let us on the bus and off we went. When we got to Cypress though we ran into a huge line waiting to get up to the security area. Once again luck was on our side. When we got up close they decided that our bags bordered on the edge of being small enough for the Express line. We made it through quickly. Although once again the detector when off when I walked thru. No clue why since I wasn't wearing any metal. At least this time the second scan went fast.

Once we got in we headed straight for a place to stand. Mom had never been to an aerial event before last night. So she thought we'd be heading for the same area only hopefully closer up. I told her that our spot last night really hadn't been very good, even if we did get closer. This time we were able to get front and center. The only negative was that we were right next to a speaker. Sometimes you have to suffer for the good spots. We were standing next to two women from the Squamish tribe (or is it clan). I traded pins with one of them. Just down from us was a group of American fans with their flags. I'm guessing they got on tv a few times. And if you ever saw a guy with a red painted face and wearing a cow costume, we were on the bus with him. Once we were settled we were 2 hours early. Thank goodness mom is such a trooper. And they were smart enough to put the Canada v USA gold medal game on the big screen to keep us entertained. Too bad the USA couldn't even score. But it kept the Canadian fans around us happy. Turns out that our location was right behind the corral that had all the USA staff in it. Tschana saw me early on and waved. The rest were too focused to notice til later and I wasn't about to try yelling again. I also noticed my boss in another area. But since I'm on vacation I never bothered to wander over that way. Besides, I wouldn't want to lose my prime location!

The first round I wasn't sure if the judges liked our guys. After one jump Speedy was in 5th and Ryan was in 8th. Fortunately on the second jump things were going a bit better. Ryan jumped into first position with his second jump. It was so great to see him react as he landed. You knew that he was happy with it and just had the biggest grin on his face. His position held until Speedy came down. Then we got to watch Speedy throw down the Hurricane which had the highest rate of difficulty of the night. He nailed it! And of course he went into first position. I haven't been that nervous since I played soccer. I didn't want to wish bad things on any of the other jumpers but there were four more. For those of you who think I always hyperventilate in these situations it isn't true. I just stood there with my gloves over my mouth before the scores were announced each time hoping and praying that Speedy would stay in first. We finally reached the point where I realized that no matter what happened he was going to get a medal. Once he got passed for gold I started praying that he would at least get to hang on to the silver. I'm not sure what happened to the last Canadian but the crowd definitely thought he got screwed. He had placed first after the first jump and finished 5th after the second. His loss was Speedy's silver!

The place we had been standing all night turned out to be perfect for the flower ceremony. And while we waited I had the opportunity to say hi to Cheryl (team manager), Emily Cook (athlete) and Ashley Caldwell (athlete) and get some photos. When Cheryl saw me she brought one of the USA pins over for me. Of course when everyone around me saw that they all wanted one. Definitely started something there. I would have waited til we got back to the office. It was so great to see Speedy get his flowers. He was just so happy. Not that you can blame him. You couldn't keep the grin off your face watching him up there celebrating. This was definitely the highlight of events for me. I loved seeing Seth get gold and Lindsey get bronze, but it was special to see Speedy win silver. Mom and I met him in 2005 at some of the ski balls. He is just such a great guy and we were so happy to be there when he won his medal. It was the perfect way to finish our Vancouver adventure! (See pictures below.)

I was thrilled to get back to the condo and find out that Billy Demong had won gold and Johnny Spillane had won silver in Nordic Combined. What a wonderful and historic day for the Nordic Program! Congratulations.

Tomorrow is Women's Slalom and Women's Snowboarding PGS. Good luck to Lindsey, Julia, Sarah Schleper and Hailey Duke. Hailey was in our first rookie group in 2007. So in her honor--- "DARE TO DREAM HAILEY!" And Good luck to Michelle Gorgone in PGS!

Question of the day- After watching aerials I wonder why it is ok for women to compete in aerials (hurling yourself thru the air) but it isn't ok to have women ski jumping? I'd love to see the IOC explain it. I'm also pissed to hear that the IOC is now threatening to take out women's hockey. How hard is it for them to understand that if a sport isn't in the Olympics it won't receive support from countries so it can continue to grow? It would be great if they could use their brains before they speak.

Little easier to take pics tonight.

Speedy in 2nd!

Men's Aerial medalists

Mom and Me at Men's Aerials

Ashley Caldwell & Me (she competed last night in her first Olympics)

Emily Cook and Me (her 2nd Olympics)

Cheryl and Me

Women's Aerials

I forgot to mention that it is starting to look/feel like winter. It has snowed on us at bobsled and at aerials. Unfortunately at aerials it was really wet so by the time we got on the bus we were soaked.

We had some time to site see before we had to catch the bus to women's aerials. I took mom downtown to see the Olympic flame. Then we walked up to Robson Square where there are lots of things going on. We were hungry by then so we went to a Red Robin. As luck would have it they had the USA hockey game on. We ate slowly so we could enjoy the last period of the game. I knew Sweden was desperate when they pulled out their goalie at the end. That either works or it fails miserably like it did this time. Glad that USA pulled off the win. After eating we decided to walk past the Hudson Bay store so mom could see the big line for the Olympic store. I'm not sure why they still have long lines. There isn't much left except shirts that you can't afford. From there we went down to the Harbor Gallery Place. I was looking at things we could do and discovered that the Northern Territories House was across the street. We went to see how bad the line was and there was no line. So we went in and looked around. I officially have decided that I need to go up there and tour around. It looks gorgeous. They also seemed to be trying to convince people that it was a good place to set up a business. I'm sold. Now I just need to figure out what kind of business to start.

Me at the Northern Territories House

From we went back to the Mall to hang out until we needed to catch our bus. As I went around the corner by the elevators the person coming my way with their husband and two kids said hi to me. It took a half a second to realize I was talking to Picabo Street! I think the logo on my shirt (U.S. Ski Team) had more to do with her talking to me than her remembering me from 2007. But you never know. I was just so shocked to be standing there having a conversation with Picabo. I asked if she had been up to Whistler and she said she hadn't been there at all. She was ready to head home on Friday. I can't imagine that NBC had Picabo Street available for commentating on skiing and they never sent her to Whistler. That was probably the highlight of the trip for me that didn't relate to an event. I got to talk to Picabo Street. She is still my hero.

I can officially say that Cypress is my least favorite venue. It was even worse when we got to aerials than it had been for SBX last week. The security took forever. For some reason I set the security off for the first time. Then they had to wand me but couldn't find anything wrong which seemed to upset the kid. Finally the supervisor did a quick scan and let me go. We stopped by the merchandise tent but they were out of the aerial pins and had hardly anything good left. By the time we got to the standing area the place was packed and we had a hard time getting a good position. Plus the fog had rolled in and it was hard to see where the athletes would be flipping through the air. We shimmied our way through the crowd until we had a half way decent spot. It turns out that the 12 athletes only represented 4 countries, USA, Australia, China and Belarus. The Canadians didn't seem to mind much and were still out in full force with their flags. The Aussies really owned the night though. My camera hated the fog so the only picture I have is of Ashley Caldwell landing her second jump. I did take some video on my small camera but it is too foggy to be worth posting.

I was cheering hard for the Aussie girls once the USA was out of the medal positions. I have nothing against the Chinese but I really wanted Lydia to win the gold if we couldn't. She nailed her run and just had to wait for the final Chinese athlete to go. The last girl had the hardest difficulty of the night. The announcers said it was the hardest trick done by the women. I told mom she was either going to nail it and get gold or fall flat on her face. She fell flat. So Lydia had the gold! Most people starting leaving before the flower ceremony so we tried to get closer. We ended up next to the media area so we got to see the athletes as they walked by. I tried to yell hi to Justin Hunt when he was with Emily but he either had the radio turned up loud in his ear or just couldn't hear me. Ashley was so cute when she walked by. She was waving to everyone. I think she enjoyed her first trip to the Olympics. It is amazing to me that she made the team in December during selection events and was at the Olympics two months later. That should make rookie camp interesting for her.

Ashley making the media rounds.

Gold Medalist from Australia

If I thought getting into the event was hard getting out took forever. We realized we were in line for the bus around 9pm. We didn't get on a bus until 10pm. Cypress still hasn't figured out a quick way to get everyone loaded. A few of us in the lines had some suggestions for them. Since it had started rain/snowing on us it was a long, wet wait. It was a late return home. But on the seabus we got to watch fireworks above the skyline. My goal is to get there early for the men and hope we can get a good spot.

Waiting for results from Nordic Combined today. Hoping Billy, Todd & Johnny can bring home some more medals. It didn't look like we had great results from women's GS but hard to tell where anyone other than Julia finished based on the three line press release I saw. I was happy to read that one American bobsled got bronze. Way to go! Now I'm ready to go cheer on Speedy and Ryan at Aerials tonight!