February 13, 2010 Day 13

Today was the first medal event of the Olympics, the Ski Jumping Individual Normal Hill event. It was raining all day up in Whistler and it made everything quite miserable. The blue smurf suits we have been given are not that waterproof and we were instructed not to use any rain ponchos of any kind for a few reasons: 1. Because it would imply that the jackets that have been given to us are not so good or water proof and 2. The media did not want the TV audience at the ski jump to show that it was not that rainy at the event for TV and 3. The sponsors logos on our jackets would be covered up for TV. So, we had to suck it up and get soaked in the rain for the ski jump medal event.
Since the ski jump event was the first of the Olympics, everyone was quite anxious and nervous. We had our first IOC medical committee member hovering and observing us along with 2 new WADA observers as well. It made it quite a challenge to identify and notify the selected athletes for testing because once they won their medal and entered the mixed zone, they were swamped with media and the fans. The gold medal winner was running around so excited and he was so happy even when we were testing him afterwards.
Because it was so busy today, I didn’t really get a chance to take any pictures. I did get a few pictures of the line ups of the spectators and workforce employees catching the buses. Transportation has been quite a big problem and there were thousands of people at WOP. The line ups were huge and everyone was soaked in the rain waiting for the buses.
Things are really starting to get busy and serious now that Olympic medals are on the line so to speak. Doping control is taken quite serious which takes some of the fun out of everything but I really like working with all of the other DCO’s.
I am convinced that if you could speak Russian, Chinese, French and German, you would have almost all of the countries covered for the Winter Olympics. The Spanish are not very well represented at all, and almost all of the Scandinavian countries speak English. All of the Russian breakaway states all still speak Russian, Ukraine etc. I did test one Japanese ski jumper but his English was pretty good and I could get by with Japanese with him.

I got a text message from Denton Michelson today. He is in Vancouver and he was guarding a sea wall in the pouring rain by the athletes village to watchout for those swimming terrorists I guess. I included the pciture of the HUGE tent that is right outside our hotel. it is to screen every bus and car for bombs and a security check that come by our hotel.
We were watching Jennifer Heil ski the moguls… too bad she didn’t win gold. But we were all so impressed with the interview she gave after.
Emma or Kathryn, if you ever give an interview, that is how you act and represent yourself, win or lose.