Saturday February 24, 2001: Wake up call at 4:30 AM, up to volunteer shuttle parking lot by 5:40 AM to catch the bus to take us to the hill.  More snow.  A one-hour delay was announced.  During this delay we were informed that the Swiss and Austrian coaches and a number of top racers had gone to the race headquarters and said what a GREAT job everybody was doing.  Shortly thereafter the race was canceled.  They still wanted us to prep for hopes of a race for Sunday. We waited up top in the worker city tent for over an hour while the wench cats were on the course.  Then we clean off the snow nets and more shoveling before lunch break.  After lunch we were assigned to the waterdown on the Buffalo Jump section by having to do the "million Steps" drill to smooth the surface.  We did this for about two hours.  As we left for the day, the skies had cleared and we were hopeful for a race tomorrow.

Sunday February 25, 2001: Wake up call at 4:30 AM. Looked out the window and was disappointed to see that it was snowing again.  Decided to bring up my ski poles just in case.  At 6:15 AM we were told we were going try to race.  The Snowbasin race department had been slipping the course since 2:00 AM and it was looking great.  Crews were sent out and we were on the lift by 6:30 AM.  We were assigned the Three Toes section.  On our way down we did as much slipping as possible until we got to our spot.  Once at our destination, we started shoveling to get the soft snow off the course.  No more than 20 minutes after starting shoveling, we were informed that the race was canceled.  This was a major let down.

We met back in the ES building to discuss the rest of the day.  At that point, we decided to go back up and help take the course down (I would say about 100 plus volunteers remained to go back up to the hill and help).  At about 8:30 AM, three from our group went up to the Flint Lock Jump abd Bear Trap sections to help take down the B netting.  This was a major task. After helping with that section, I helped with moving an air padding over to the Women's course for next week.  We cycled through a few more times and helped with any thing we could. I got down just in time to see the parade of nations and the official opening of the Olympic downhill course.

The highlight of the morning was riding the Olympic Tram to the top of the course.  Visibility was terrible, but it was exciting to see what the racers see from out of the start house.  At that point my crew chief and I skied the course with slalom and giant slalom turns.  That was a blast.  Just before buffalo hill, we were asked to help with some more fencing.  So, after that, we felt we should go back up and try it one more time.  Although there was lots of snow everywhere, we could still ski some of the hard pack that was cleared prior to the race being canceled.

Finally, the volunteers were treated to a VIP lunch in the VIP tent for all their hard work.  Although all three races were cancelled, I feel it was a great test for everyone involved.  It gave all the volunteers who have not raced a chance to see what to expect during a world class event.  It will only help for next year. I can hardly wait for February 2002.

Final comment: I didn't take me long to figure out why our crew numbers were 1 and 2.  It was obvious that we had the best crew on the course and they simply assigned crew numbers in that order (of course I'm sure all the other crews felt the same way about their crews).  I look forward to the opportunity to volunteer as course crew worker during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

Rich

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