A wet one .....

The day, Friday, started with a miserable drizzle in the air as I walked to the early morning bus stop. It was cool but not cold enough for snow in the Pemberton Valley. The bus rides were uneventful and I got to work quite efficiently as I was almost an hour early. At check-in I received another pin for “just because” to add to my collection of pins. We have received small gifts on each 3rd shift as well as a beautiful commemorative coin of the Olympics as a “just because” gift. At the end of my last shift I will get a watch as a memento of the experience. This pin will bring the tally of small gifts to 7 for doing our shifts. There were other Team Leads there early so we chatted about our experiences and our lives outside of the games. It was a nice and fun conversation and an opportunity to get to know more about the folks we had been working alongside over the past couple of weeks. Rachel showed up with the list of assignments at our shift time and off we went in our separate directions to find out exactly what sector in the Biathlon environment we would be working in.

My assignment was to manage the “back of house” where we needed 9 access control pints and one or two monitors for the Accessible Shuttle. This sub-venue has the same bad plan as the X-Country venue where the shuttle arrives and departs in the restricted area. That meant that we had to escort folks to the “front of house” where they could move about freely and then escort them back to the shuttle after the competition was complete. It creates a bottleneck and is quite resource intensive. None-the-less we organized ourselves and due to a shortage of Team leaders I was assigned two areas of responsibility. I was excited, for a while, that I had two extra resources but that did not last long as they were re-assigned in the very dynamic environment we work in.

The weather in the Callaghan Valley was much nicer in the morning than in Pemberton. The precipitation was actually big fluffy snowflakes and there was an accumulation of wet snow on the ground. That persisted through the morning and into the afternoon with the precipitation slowly turning to rain in the afternoon. It was a wet work environment and our clothes were tested again in terms of water repellence. By the day’s end my jacket was heavy with water but my pants kept me quite dry. There were ponchos available for some that were clear plastic and we made sure that the folks who were working in the outside without shelter got them first. I deployed the team after I had figured out the environment as this was my first time in this sub-venue. All of the team were quite happy to do anything with the exception of one gent who turned out to be my problem child of the day. In the end at noon he told my supervisor, not me, that he had to leave at 1 PM – with his wife who was also on my team – as he had to get to the some party in town. I found some replacements and released them immediately as I was happy to see him off the team. The balance of the day went smoothly and I even managed to see Freddi and Tara-Lee who had come to see the medal event of the 4 man relay Biathlon race. The race itself sounded very exciting but I could not see the race from any vantage point in our area. We did get up close and personal with the athletes, dignitaries and the royalty that showed up for this event. Our PM, Steven Harper, was scheduled to arrive at 11 am but he cancelled his appearance. Later in the day I saw him on TV at the curling event so I guess he chose a dry environment instead of our wet Biathlon.

The Norwegians came up with the gold medal performance followed by Austria and Russia. The Canadians placed 10th and that means they have done very well gaining on the Euros in this winter sport. I spoke with the “wax guy” for the Canadian team and he pointed out examples of how well their waxing technology strategy was helping them out. However, I still marvel at how these guys (and women) can ski so hard and then calmly shoot out the bull’s-eye of the targets and then ski off again. They are truly disciplined athletes.

The shift wore on as we cleared the spectators after the competition was completed. We managed to get that done by about 2 pm and then we de-briefed the team and set off for the day. There was a party organized for the Event Services Team members at the X-Country workforce tent but I opted out as I was cold and not very perky with the start of a cold. I took the bus to Whistler and met up with Gray and Bree as they returned from the hockey romp of the U.S. over Finland. Apparently the game was won in the first 6 minutes and the final score was 8-0. They drove us home and I got out of the wet clothes and readied myself to watch the Canada vs Slovakia game. Freddi had prepared a nice pasta meal to enjoy during the game. Both the game and the pasta were delicious and the game had some pretty exciting moments as it was very close. In the end it was Canada’s game and we are now set for the final game against U.S on Sunday.

I crashed shortly after the game as I have my last shift is on Saturday and it will be an early start to the day – as usual.