Feb 27th
I have had a week of down time to rest, recover, and prepare for the
next race. This consists mostly of a little bit of easy skiing and
plenty of down time to hang out in the athletes village, wander around
Whistler, and watch events.
The athletes village is a pretty neat place. With airport grade
security getting in and out is pretty intense initially. Apparently
the security budget for the Games is pushing one billion. Maybe that
money would be better spent protecting the sliding course.
The Kiwi team has its own little condo, mostly bedrooms and bathrooms
with a lounge area, office, and PT room. Most of the other teams have
similar setups nestled in the woods, although a couple of unlucky ones
were put into the overflow temp trailers. After the Games the village
will become affordable housing for working class locals. I am looking
forward to coming back here in several years to see what it is like as
a residential area.
The 24hr dining hall is similar to a college food court, but with
significantly higher grade food, more variety and, most importantly,
it's free. The Olympics is a corporate free event, unless of course
you are CocaCola, McDonalds, or a handful of the other deep pocketed
top sponsors. Unfortunately I don't get free credit from Visa but
along with all the regular food hall stuff there is also a full-sized
McDonalds. The line has steadily grown towards the end as more
athletes finish their competitions and partying takes precedence over
performance.
The dining hall is a good place to mingle with other teams but it is
a pretty tame scene compared to the gym. It is crazy to see so many
elite athletes, each the best in their respective field, working out
in the same area. The variation in workouts and body type is
hilarious; from the skinny jumpers doing balance exercises to the
bobsled teams grunting out power lifts. There are finesse, endurance,
and power athletes all mixed together and more than a few are pretty
impressive. Like Alexey Voyevoda, Russia's bobsled brakeman and
professional arm wrestler, squatting almost 1000lbs, or Anja Paerson
doing standing jumps twice as high as I can.
There is also plenty of other stuff going on, several games rooms, a
movie theater, lots of live music, an impressive health clinic, and of
course condoms everywhere. The NZ ski coaches have been getting MRIs
on their knees and last time I was in there for blood work the whole
polish support staff was lining up for free dental care. I am planning
on getting all checked out before I leave.
Feb 22
At the Olympics you hope to have the best race of your season, or even your life. Unfortunately this was not the case for me on Saturday. I went out way to fast and crashed and burned. Read on if you want the details.
I think a good indicator of how big a race is, is how long before the start do you get diarrhea. Small time races: never, pretty serious
events: right before or even the morning of, the Olympics: two days before. Although I've skied against some high caliber fields over the last couple of years, it has been since the '06 season that I've skied a World Cup and this is definitely my first Olympics. Needless to say I was fairly nervous going into my first race and having missed the first two races I was rearing to go. I was bib 62 out of 64, so I was starting on the back row. The gun went off, the crowd roared and everything went as it usually does at the start, double polling down the stadium madly, shuffling lanes, protecting poles, trying to stay out of trouble, etc. The first bottleneck was an uphill left hander, a couple people got tangled up in front of me so I jumped out of the tracks to the outside and kept moving along, trying to find a spot to get back in. With most of the mass start races I have been doing (Eastern Cups, Carnivals...)the goal is to get up front away from the mess and go from there. But this is the Olympics. I had a fair bit of adrenalin coursing through the veins, and my frontal lobe wasn't working as it should. Before I knew it I was back in the tracks leading the field. Al Trautwig on NBC said "whats up with that...I don't think I've ever seen a skier from NZ lead a race" and I thought "Oh God". I continued hammering and was feeling ok for the first couple of Ks before it all started going down hill. On top of going out to hard it didn't help to have soggy red blood cells and a bit of the sickness that has been going around. I have never hit the wall so hard and so early and the rest of the race was damage control. I made a amateur move and paid for it with another hour of lactic suffering, a very poor result, and then about 10 minutes of vomiting. For the record this was not part of the game plan and I can assure you that I will not lead out the 50k race on the 28th.
Feb 18
I was planning on kicking off my Olympic debut with the 15k Freestyle race on Monday but FIS (International Ski Federation) thought otherwise. Athletes have a mandatory blood test before competition that examines several things, among them hemoglobin, an oxygen-carrying protein in red blood cells. Higher Hb equals more oxygen carrying capacity, which equals better performance. This is why athletes train at altitude, do certain types of workouts and in some cases use banned performance enhancing drugs. Any Hb level above 16.9 g/dl is deemed 'unsafe'. I scored 17.2, a couple points over, resulting in a five days stand down from competition. FIS says the 'safe' levels were "introduced from the season 2001/2002 to address the cultural problems that existed within Cross-Country skiing." The 'cultural problems' is a way to sugar coat the fact that there is a significant doping problem in elite cross country skiing.
Unfortunately for me FIS does not differentiate between natural talent and doping when it comes to the 5 day suspension. They are clear to state that this is not a doping sanction and my tests are obviously clean. There is natural fluctuation during the day depending on hydration (I scored 16.2 several days earlier), as well as variance in the sample machine, but there is still no recourse for second testing.
I have altitude training and my parents to blame for passing on good genes and naturally high Hb levels. This means that due to a flawed system that tries (and continues to fail) to keep the sport clean, clean athletes miss out on competition while many cheaters do not.
However frustrating that is I am now looking ahead to my final two races. I am retested again on the 18th. With more time at low altitude and proper hydration I'm confident that I will be under the limit. I have the 30k Pursuit (15k classic then 15k freestyle) on the 20th then a week off before the 50k on the last day of the games.
Feb 13, 2010
I've now been in the Whistler Olympic Village for two days. Things have barely started and already it's been a pretty crazy ride. I had a rough start with a delayed plane then a missed connection in Denver.
But after an extra nine hours in the Denver airport with five time Olympian Casey Puckett, and a couple of kids Mcdonald's sponsored to view the Games, I was headed for Vancouver, arriving at 1am on Thursday.
The first thing you notice about the Olympics is how many smerf colored volunteers there are everywhere trying to help you out. Even though most are standing in the rain they are surprisingly cheerful and the stereotype of the friendly Canadian is right on. The second thing is all the athletes. I know it seems a bit silly to note being suppressed by athletes in the athlete village, but it really is pretty impressive being around all the top winter sportspeople in the world.
On Thursday we had a team function with the Four Host First Nations.
This Olympics is the first where the indigenous groups have been incorporated as official partners, and the Kiwi team was keen to respect that. This involved a traditional ceremony in a Squamish long house where the team was welcomed onto their native land, and presented with blankets to ward off bad forces, along with plenty of good food and music. We closed with the naming of our flag bearer, Ju Bray, and a Haka. . I have not done one since NZ high school and despite a morning of practice I was still fairly rusty. I am now working on it in between ski training sessions.
Yesterday I had my first day on the trails. Plenty of big ups, downs, and a couple of technical corners that combined with the half frozen slop were a little hairy. I saw one Norwegian girl climbing out of a ditch with a half a pole and later another with a broken ski. For a brief moment the sky partially cleared to reveal portions of improbably high mountain faces. This place would be beautiful if it ever stopped raining.
The Opening Ceremonies are hard to describe, so I won't. The whole event was an incredible experience. Few things I have done have come close to walking into the stadium behind the NZ flag.
Now I have one more training day, to dial in skis, check out the course and get ready for my race on the 15th.
