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NEWS:
The day started out well, good weather, great snow, although I did have to get on the lift at 5:20 A.M. I picked up my skis from the wax room at 5 A.M. and was
surprised to see the that the wax technicians, Thanos, Guras, and Coop,
were working on the boards full tilt. They had been doing this all night, high on caffeine and loving it.
I headed out to set the course for the first run. It was a bit challenging setting the top half in the dark. I was happy with the outcome of the course though, and it ran well. The crowd streamed in all morning, and thousands of spectators would lean over the fence to give me high fives as I worked my way to the lift from the bottom of the course.
The first run was great. The weather was perfect and the riders were able to go full out. The riding was incredible, with the majority of the field laying down near flawless runs. I think the first eight riders finished within one second of each other. It was heartbreaking to see Canada's Mark Fawcett have his board explode into several pieces halfway down the pitch. He has been riding so well and it must be so hard to have equipment failure cost him the race.
Chris Klug had a really solid first run and was tied for second place .07 seconds out of first. Mike Jacoby made a big mistake coming on to the steep part of the course and was out of the running. Adam Hostetter layed it on the line going full out from start number 31. He had a great run, but ran it just a little to straight at the bottom. He was wide going into the last gate and threw himself into the air to make it going sideways in the air and tumbled across the finish line. His time put him in 12th place.
It wasn't clear weather he correctly passed the last gate or not and we had to wait until the end of the race to see if he had been disqualified. When the gatekeepers cards were turned in, he was on the list. We filed an official protest, but the video control confirmed with out a doubt that his board had passed on the wrong side of the stubby. One inch the other way and he would have been okay.
The temperature dropped between the first and second runs and the
snow became icy. The course setter for the second run set a cranky,
difficult course. It looked as if it would be hard for the riders to lay
down clean runs.
The first fifteen riders go in reverse order by fastest time from the first run. The weather started moving in and after about six or seven riders, officials had to hold the race up for about ten minutes due to fog. It finally
lifted enough to provide adequate visibility, and the race got under way
again.
Ueli Kestenholz layed down a solid run, which would eventually get
him the bronze medal. Ross Rebagliati ripped one from 8th place, and
amazingly held on to 1st. One by one the major contenders from the first
run fell apart. Martin Freinadimitz flew off the bump going on to the
pitch and ended up way late on the hard turns on the steep. Nicolas Conte
did the same. Many others made it clean through the pitch, only to run into
trouble on the cranky turns just before the finish. Chris Klug had a solid
run going, but got caught up in a panel halfway down the pitch and wasn't
able to get back on line the rest of the way down the course finishing in
6th. It was really disappointing to have him be so close to winning.
I think it was terribly hard for Chris and Rob, but they dealt with it well.
The crowd was going crazy and the noise was deafening. All the riders were
having a great time despite their difficulties, and the cheers were
enormous for every rider as they came across the finish line, almost all of
them with their hands in the air no matter what place they finished.
It's been a crazy hectic trip, but a lot of fun as well. We started out by missing our connection in San Francisco. We had to spend the night and it put us a day behind in an already tight schedule. We rented a van in SF and went to the beach to check out the huge waves at Maverick's and then all of us boys had an interesting night on the town.
We got upgraded to business class for the flight to Osaka the next day, so
that was nice. We arrived in Osaka in the evening and immediately went
through USOC processing. Processing is basically were you fill out some
forms and they give you a truckload of free shit. It's crazy. You have a
complete parade outfit, travel clothes, awards clothes, Olympic team dress
clothes, competition wear, even Olympic bathrobes.
From Osaka we flew to Matsumoto the next day were I picked up my Japanese cell phone and our two Chevy Vans. One of the vans was the full pimp daddy ride with the captains chairs, TV, and VCR. Sadly, these was no sunset scene painted on the side.
It's crazy driving in Japan because you are on the left side of the road with
the steering wheel also on the left side. From Osaka we drove to the
Olympic Village in Nagano, and went through more processing and everybody
received their Olympic issue pagers. After that we drove to Hakuba, where
Rob had some private training set up. We got in some great sessions there
then moved to Shiga, the site of the races.
We trained in Shiga one day, then moved down to the Olympic Village for one night to march in the opening ceremonies the next day. We had a press conference that evening and it was huge. A big auditorium packed with cameras and press people, even columnist Dave Barry was there. The USOC Media guy said it was the best press conference since The hockey team won the gold medal in 1980.
The opening ceremony day was cool, every one got all dressed up
in their required gear and we rode a bus to the stadium. We marched next
to, and hung out with the Women's Hockey team; they're really cool. It
makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you enter the stadium
and hear and see the thousand of people cheering.
The constant barrage of press is out of hand. Everyone is constantly doing interviews. Jacoby did the Letterman thing with Dave's Mom last night, and Kennedy (from MTV), who is working with CBS hangs with us all the time.
Ross Rebagliatti Just came into my room to show me his Gold Medal that he's still wearing around his neck. It's beautiful. He said the Medal ceremony was amazing, and that the crowd broke down the barriers and mobbed him. He gets to be on the Wheatie's box in Canada. I'm stoked for Ross. He's a great guy. It was funny to see him on the awards stand at the finish with no board, as he has no board sponsor.
Well you can tell by the length of this note that the Women's race has been postponed until tomorrow. I hope one our girls will be wearing that gold medal tomorrow night.
-- Peter
OTHER NEWS Wrong Side of the Fence: The Olympic Men's GS Sun. (Feb. 08 @ 1:09:PM est) Racing Rules Sun. (Feb. 08 @ 1:09:PM est) Games On: The Opening Ceremony Sat. (Feb. 07 @ 12:29:PM est)
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