Guest Blogger, TJ Greco!

While the Olympics are a fascination for millions sitting at home watching and cheering on their fellow countrymen (and women) to victory, there are many sides to the story that never see the light of day.  Fortunately for me, I live with one of the people working hard to bring some of those facets to the viewing public (read: free trip/boondoggle for me).

Now that I have been here a few days, I can honestly say that no amount of television coverage, emails, or blog entries can capture the true essence of being here.  Maybe I am blinded by my love for the winter games, but everything is bigger, faster, crazier, and more fun (except the cowbell).

One of the biggest stories coming out of the games was never itself intended to be a story.  That, of course, is the worlds fastest sliding track for bobsleigh, skeleton, and luge.  On the 21st, I had the opportunity to go to the track to see the mens 2 man bobsleigh heats 3 and 4 which would ultimately decide the gold medal winner.  (On another note -- When did bobsled officially become bobsleigh?  This was never passed by me.)  


Since I had never been to a bobsleigh event, I wanted to get there early so that I could take everything in -- plus I knew I would have to negotiate Olympic Security at the Sliding Center (I can also now report that Canadians are incredibly friendly -- while patting your sensitive areas for weapons, they will still ask you how your day was).  Seeing the track for the first time is absolutely amazing.  The scale of the track, the degree of the banked turns, and the sheer vertical drop is nothing that can be conveyed in pictures.  As a spectator at home I never realized how steep the finish actually is.  Watching at home makes it look like the finish is quite flat, but in reality after they make their final turn the course heads straight back uphill.  The finish where you see the drivers getting out of the sleighs is roughly halfway back up the mountain!

The event had been delayed by three hours due to the warm weather.  The sun was softening the track even with the advanced cryogenic technology that is used (you can see some of the tubes in the picture above) and the track staff was hard at work prepping the surface.  White shades were also being used to keep the sun off of the track until race time.

I took this time to walk to the very top of the track.  It is so high and so steep that it took me about 20 minutes to walk to the top -- and the bobsleighs 50 seconds to reach the bottom.  There were 20 sleighs competing and 16 turns on the track, so my plan was to walk back down the mountain and watch each sled from a different vantage point.  Here is USA 1 -- Holcomb just out of the starting gate:

It took me a while to get down to the bottom of the track, but when I did, I could not believe how many people were there to cheer on their sleighs.  It was a sea of cowbell and maple leafs and the feeling was electric.  The final corner is amazingly fast as the sleighs reach their top speeds.  You always know how close the sleighs are.  They sound like a freight train coming down the track.  I really didn't expect that.

The infield of the final turn is a big party (they sell beer at the venue) and is where most of the spectators congregate to watch the 90 mph sleds negotiate the last turn before the finish line.  It was a lot like lollapalooza but without the teenagers and bad music.

The other big pre-Olympic story was the weather itself -- or lack of it.  As Philadelphia received record amounts of snowfall this winter, Whistler was plowing though 50 degree days.  While I am sure that some of the no-weather hype is true, I will just let the pictures speak for themselves.