Men's Downhill Training starts at Whistler

Finally, after all of the preparation and hard work, today we had our first Men's Downhill training run at Whistler. A 6am start for our crew had us arriving at Creekside in the early morning darkness with hundreds of course workers, volunteers, athletes, coaches and media. Excitement was in the air.

It was absolutely thrilling to see racers on the Dave Murray Downhill. After making sure that the photographers were in place and all of the technology was up, running and on-line I had a chance to move around the course and enjoy watching the race from different vantage points which is a luxury that I don't usually have when shooting for the Canadian Team. I just happened to run into Banff's own Jan Hudec and Peter Bosinger having a quick chat before Jan's run. I don't know how many hours Peter is working as the Sporting Director for the Alpine Events but it's alot more than I am and I've totally lost count of mine!!

Soon afterwards Jan was flying by where we were just standing. The cheers from the workers and spectators lining the course when the Canadians came by was awesome but just a hint of what is to come on race day!! I can't wait.

Tomorrow we have both Men's and Women's training runs scheduled and we are up even earlier It is going to be a huge day and the first full real-time test of all of our systems. I'll be posting in a couple of days with more news. Cheers from Whistler!