Olympic Fever Builds As Teams Fly In to British Columbia
Olympic Fever Builds As Teams Fly In to British Columbia
Published : 31-Jan-2010 05:22
Most competitors at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler and Vancouver have now flown in to the region for acclimatization and final preparations, with the Games now less than two weeks away.Snow conditions are varied across the venues as the region has had very heavy precipitation over the first two months of the season, with Whistler reporting around 10 metres of snowfall over the last 10 weeks, but the snow has been falling as rain at Cypress Mountain, venue for the freestyle and snowboarding events.
Maintaining the half pipe and other snow slopes has been particularly difficult with teams working 24 hours a day and measures including covering snow with straw and other protection and helicoptering in loads of fresh snow from higher up the mountain among measures taken.
Whistler's lower slopes have been thawing in the day then freezing overnight, leading to icy conditions on the bottom half of the mountain, hopefully good news for race surfaces if conditions continue.
Monumental snowfall over the last week has created perfect conditions at Mount Washington Alpine Resort, a key training area for arriving international teams. With a mid-mountain snow base of 320cm and 399cm at the top, the resort is once again the home of Canada's deepest snowpack. Indeed it has deeper snow than any other North American resort and is among the world top three for snow depth.
The news couldn't be any better for the first wave of Olympic athletes who arrive this week to train at the Island mountain.
"We received over a metre and a half of snow in the last six days," says Resort spokesperson Brent Curtain.
The Chinese Biathlon team arrived in the Comox Valley late Thursday and hit the snow on Friday, January 22nd. The team will train at the mountain's popular Nordic Centre, an obvious choice for numerous cross-country and biathlon teams over the next month. A total of 26 teams from 15 countries are performing their final on-snow preparations at Mount Washington before heading back to the Lower Mainland and Whistler for the Games.
"We've worked hard to attract teams over the last few years," explains Don Sharpe, Director of Business Operations. "You can feel the excitement with the impending arrival of each team. It's great to see our plan to make Mount Washington a training site for the Games come to fruition."
"We're the training destination of choice for many international teams," adds Sharpe. "Take Sweden for example. We're hosting their Cross-Country, Biathlon, Freestyle Ski, Ski Cross, Snowboard Race, and Paralympic Teams."
Mount Washington and delegates from the Comox Valley plan on holding some meet and greet events over the next month so the visiting public can catch a glimpse of the Olympians.
"The chances of a guest at the resort riding a chairlift with an Olympian or two are pretty good," says Sharpe. "It's important to remember that these athletes are here to focus on their training, their privacy is crucial and as their hosts we must do our part to respect that."
Courtesy of and © Snow24 plc
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