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I wouldn't dream of it now
They played a lot of Smiths/Morrissey during the trial ski jumps Sunday morning. Maybe because it's the 25th anniversary of Meat Is Murder. I dunno. I heard a lot of people complaining about how disorganized the herding cats spectators was compared to say SLC, and I would have to agree. Not that I know for sure, but it was incredibly disorganized. But at any rate, we bused up to the Olympic site from Whistler about an hour before the ski jump began, and walked about a half a mile from the bus stop to the ski jump hill. We had the best seats in the house, first row of bleachers smack dab in front. And just before the event started for real the sun came out. I hadn't brought my sunglasses along with me, alas.
Still it was quite nice. Like any sort of sporting event, you get caught up in the enthusiasm of the crowd. Also in general Winter Olympic sporting events are actually interesting, unlike team sports (to me at least). But when it comes down to it, you are watching about 50 dudes in tights ski really fast off a jump, then fly in the air for a hundred meters or so. It can get a bit repetitive. You almost look forward to people fucking up.
Since it was the nordic combined, the ski jump just put delayed starts on the cross-country race later that afternoon. An American was second and a Finn was first. So after the last jumper, Reg and I raced out to the eatery, but we were still beaten. This is actually because we were waiting for Reg's mom to use the toilet, as she hadn't the presence of mine to go during the event like the rest of the party did. So we decided we'd just go to the cafe at the CC race. Unfortunately it started to pour rain during our .75mile walk. Few things are more unpleasant than walking in pouring rain at near-freezing temps in a huge crowd of people.
ONE THING MORE UNPLEASANT - going into the only heated tent after you get your food to find it crampacked wall-to-wall with folk. Also, babies crying. And for Reg, his hot dog being overcooked didn't help. Oh well. As soon as we finished eating the rain stopped, so we went to find our seats. This time we were on the last row, which was ok b/c we were out of the wind. Odd thing was, the people next to us had sat next to us during the ski jump, too. I guess the ticket packages were sold in bulk like that. Weird. They were from Florida and had seen Apollo Ohno the previous day and were PSYCHED AS HELL to be up for the Olympics, and actually wanted to go again in four years. (Whereas I just want to go to X-Games now.)
And so then the race itself. Four laps of guys hurting themselves. If you've ever tried cross-country skiing you know what I'm talking about. It was nigh-impossible for anyone to pass up anyone else but it happened, and the lousy Frenchman pulled ahead of the American in the last 2 seconds, literally. That was pretty intense. I kept trying to snap photos, but the little blobs weren't very interesting. I finally hit upon the trick of getting about four skiers on one side of the track going the opposite direction of four skiers on the other side of the track. Of course I took these photos with Reg's camera, and he's still in Canada, so I can't really show what I'm talking about yet.
So yeah, that was my Olympic adventure.
Still it was quite nice. Like any sort of sporting event, you get caught up in the enthusiasm of the crowd. Also in general Winter Olympic sporting events are actually interesting, unlike team sports (to me at least). But when it comes down to it, you are watching about 50 dudes in tights ski really fast off a jump, then fly in the air for a hundred meters or so. It can get a bit repetitive. You almost look forward to people fucking up.
Since it was the nordic combined, the ski jump just put delayed starts on the cross-country race later that afternoon. An American was second and a Finn was first. So after the last jumper, Reg and I raced out to the eatery, but we were still beaten. This is actually because we were waiting for Reg's mom to use the toilet, as she hadn't the presence of mine to go during the event like the rest of the party did. So we decided we'd just go to the cafe at the CC race. Unfortunately it started to pour rain during our .75mile walk. Few things are more unpleasant than walking in pouring rain at near-freezing temps in a huge crowd of people.
ONE THING MORE UNPLEASANT - going into the only heated tent after you get your food to find it crampacked wall-to-wall with folk. Also, babies crying. And for Reg, his hot dog being overcooked didn't help. Oh well. As soon as we finished eating the rain stopped, so we went to find our seats. This time we were on the last row, which was ok b/c we were out of the wind. Odd thing was, the people next to us had sat next to us during the ski jump, too. I guess the ticket packages were sold in bulk like that. Weird. They were from Florida and had seen Apollo Ohno the previous day and were PSYCHED AS HELL to be up for the Olympics, and actually wanted to go again in four years. (Whereas I just want to go to X-Games now.)
And so then the race itself. Four laps of guys hurting themselves. If you've ever tried cross-country skiing you know what I'm talking about. It was nigh-impossible for anyone to pass up anyone else but it happened, and the lousy Frenchman pulled ahead of the American in the last 2 seconds, literally. That was pretty intense. I kept trying to snap photos, but the little blobs weren't very interesting. I finally hit upon the trick of getting about four skiers on one side of the track going the opposite direction of four skiers on the other side of the track. Of course I took these photos with Reg's camera, and he's still in Canada, so I can't really show what I'm talking about yet.
So yeah, that was my Olympic adventure.