Rubbing shoulders with Olympians

[crucible]

I got up this morning, saw that it was a bluebird day, and got my gear out for a trip to my local hill, Grouse Mountain. Usually, I'm the only person on the tram with a hardboot set-up, so imagine my surprise when I got to the loading ramp and saw twelve alpine race boards stacked up like lumber at Home Depot.

I counted six Kesslers, two Sigi Grabners, and four Oxess boards. Hmmmmmm...I wonder who owns this stash?

It turns out that they belonged to the Russian Olympic alpine GS team, who are in town for the FIS World Cup race on neighbouring Cypress Mountain. The Russians and their coaches were on Grouse for training, along with the US, Italian, and Canadian alpine snowboard teams.

These past three weeks have seen a lot of Olympic activity in town, with shakedown events in alpine and nordic skiing, ski jumping, sliding (luge, bobsled and skeleton) and snowboarding. On top of that there has been a Federal Government Olympic security exercise, so armored personnel carriers, tactical helicopters and destroyers have been cruising past our apartment building (we live right downtown in the middle of what will be the Olympic village in 2010).

I got to wish fellow Canadian Jasey Jay Andersen, Chris Klug, Tyler Jewell and Justin Reiter from Team USA good luck for tomorrow's race; and see them attack the training gates. I saw a lot of Hangl and Vist plates; and a healthy cross section of bindings from F2's, Burton race plates, Bomber TD2's and Catek OS2's among the racers. I also noticed a large variety of spring suspension systems on everyone's hardboots. UPZ, Deeluxe, and Head boots were all represented.

I wasn't able to snap any pictures, sorry- I was too busy chatting and welcoming the racers to my alpine hood.

It sure has been an interesting weekend!

George

[lamby]

That is so cool George - it must have been something to come upon that stack of lumber at the lift! Thanks for the low down on what those guys are riding and what their set-ups look like. What a day - thanks for sharing it with us.

[tenorman]

I got up this morning, saw that it was a bluebird day, and got my gear out for a trip to my local hill, Grouse Mountain. Usually, I'm the only person on the tram with a hardboot set-up, so imagine my surprise when I got to the loading ramp and saw twelve alpine race boards stacked up like lumber at Home Depot.

I counted six Kesslers, two Sigi Grabners, and four Oxess boards. Hmmmmmm...I wonder who owns this stash?

It turns out that they belonged to the Russian Olympic alpine GS team, who are in town for the FIS World Cup race on neighbouring Cypress Mountain. The Russians and their coaches were on Grouse for training, along with the US, Italian, and Canadian alpine snowboard teams.

These past three weeks have seen a lot of Olympic activity in town, with shakedown events in alpine and nordic skiing, ski jumping, sliding (luge, bobsled and skeleton) and snowboarding. On top of that there has been a Federal Government Olympic security exercise, so armored personnel carriers, tactical helicopters and destroyers have been cruising past our apartment building (we live right downtown in the middle of what will be the Olympic village in 2010).

I got to wish fellow Canadian Jasey Jay Andersen, Chris Klug, Tyler Jewell and Justin Reiter from Team USA good luck for tomorrow's race; and see them attack the training gates. I saw a lot of Hangl and Vist plates; and a healthy cross section of bindings from F2's, Burton race plates, Bomber TD2's and Catek OS2's among the racers. I also noticed a large variety of spring suspension systems on everyone's hardboots. UPZ, Deeluxe, and Head boots were all represented.

I wasn't able to snap any pictures, sorry- I was too busy chatting and welcoming the racers to my alpine hood.

It sure has been an interesting weekend!

George

hi crucible

thanks for posting that. i missed all that because i took advantage of the 48hour madness event to ride during the low volume 2am to 8am period.

i did see one kid with a kessler running off the gondola as i was leaving but didn’t investigate further as i was too tired from snowboarding all night plus i had to rush home to feed my dog.

i was wondering why they closed off the olympic chair at 4am and started grooming the peak. the snowboard racers must have requested the old FIS ski course which started up at the peak and cut left at the big building before the ski patrol dispatch and continued down the face to the bottom of the site of the old blueberry chair. since you are younger than i am, you may not remember that grouse successfully hosted a FIS ski race about 20 years ago back when MOLSON was still the title sponsor. i remember all the spectators going nuts when ALBERTO TOMBA was announced as the next racer. that was also when i first realized that the skis you bought weren’t anywhere close to what the pros used. from my vantage point in the finish area, TOMBA’s skis looked like they were about 6 inches thick underneath the bindings and appeared to be of sandwich construction painted to look like cap construction!

hopefully, the groomers did a good job and grouse will have more alpine snowboard racing even if only in a peripheral sense.

[Michelle]

If they are still there, make sure to wish Tyler a happy b-day in a few days!

Those guys are all super nice, and would love it if someone came up to them and said "good luck" or just simply hello, i'm a fellow carver!

Home Depot is a sponsor of the olympic team, and "employs" a bunch of those guys in their down time. Just FYI