February 25, 2010 Day 25

Today was the most amazing day in the Olympics for Canada! Rochette, Canadian Women's hockey GOLD, ladies short track speed skating....

The energy and excitment is something I have never experienced at such an intensity. I had some people tell me that downtown Vancouver and Whistler village is absolute pandemonium. Like, Mardi Gras times 10 in intensity.

Some examples of this are in the Athletes village, there was a spontaneous snowball fight that started just like on the commercial however, it ended up in a fist fight between some Russian and Canadian athletes! It is these stories you don't hear about in the newspaper...

Today I was at WOP working the Nordic combined and women's cross country skiing again. It was a rainy day and this causes huge problems for the skier and the wax technicians for all the countries. They were running around back and forth trying out different skis. It amde me realize why most of the athletes will bring 40-50 pairs of skis each for different snow conditions...

I wanted to get a picture with one of the language interpreters we work with everyday. They have done a great job for us. Every morning we call the language center and we get a grocery list of language interpreters available that day. We use Russian the most and this is a picture of Samirra who has been working the most with us with the Russian athletes.

Couple of other interesting things I have learned. I have become good friends with Alan McMurray who is from Drumore, Ireland. Harry Potter is from his hometown and he knows his family in Drumore. I took a picture of a medallion that they gave us for working at WOP. It is really nice and much appreciated gift for working so much.

I also took a picture of my workforce card. You get a sticker every shift you work and the Anti-doping team has worked the most. My card is almost completely full already with only 3 days left in the games.

I couldn't resist the urge to get my picture taken at the photobooth at the ski jump...

The coolest thing about the Olympics I have realized today was it is really amazing to see these Olympic gold medalists on TV and I know some of them quite well as people and not as celebrities. They are people just like you and I but have accomplished some incredible athletic feats. It is too bad that we are not allowed at all to take any pictures of them but almost all of them are such nice people.