The days are really starting to all blur together. It is getting to the point int he games where the real stories of the Olympics are starting to come out.
I worked the Men's Ski Jumping Large hill final and the Men's cross country ski 30 km pursuit final. Huge crowds for both these events and I had the opportunity to meet alot of people and alot of athletes. Outside our doping control station, the athletes leave their skis outside and I took some pictures of their skis. That is a picture of the gold and silver medalists skis.
It is quite amazing what these athletes can do physically and what performances they can deliver when they need to. Just as a follow-up, the Bronze medal winner of the ladies cross country ski sprint (1.5 km) final a few days ago is quite a story. When we spoke to the Slovenian team, the team doctor said that she had fallen down into a 3m hole off the track during the morning training run. She was x-rayed in the polyclinic and had broken 3 of her ribs. She refused to pull out and raced 2 more heats and won the bronze medal but because she exerted herself so much, she had broken 2 more ribs and had punctured her lung (pneumothorax) from one of the broken ribs. She is receiving the Slovenian award comparable to the Order of Canada. Quite an amazing and inspirational story.
Funny thing happened to my room mate today. His name is Tim as well and he is an avid runner. A bit crazy actually. Anyways, he decides today after working Ski jumping that he would just run back to Whistler Creekside from Whistler Olympic park (WOP) instead of taking the bus. WOP is about 40km and it takes about 30 mins to drive home because it is a twisting, mountain road. Anyways, he decides to run and take a shortcut through the forest and runs right into the Canadian military camping in the forest. They were actually quite happy to see him because they said he was the first person they have seen in 3 weeks. The commanding officer told him that they couldn't allow him to run back so they drove him back into Whistler in an armoured personelle carrier (LAV-4) and then turned him over to the RCMP who then drove him and a police car back to the hotel. it is good to know that they have the entire area around WOP guarded and secure even if a crazy guy can get within 12 steps of the U.S. vice president Biden...
I will focus on a particular country each blog and today I will highlight the German athletes. Well, I don't like to sterotype people but I have to say that the Germans as a whole are not very nice to deal with particularly with drug testing. Let's just say they are very arrogant and that is just the way they are. Once I figured this out, everything went well. The Austrians on the other hand by our observations are... well, the nice Germans. It's funny that every country and culture has their own unique idiosyncracies...
I have posted pictures of Brian from Moncton, NB and Christian from Norway. Both DCO's with the purple sleeves for doping control. Both are great guys and I really enjoy working with them.
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