One year after the 2002 Olympic Games — February 12th:
An update on John Aalberg, the person behind the 2002 Olympic Cross-Country success.
This week, exactly one year ago, many of us experienced some of the best days ever as Cross-Country enthusiasts and promoters. Soldier Hollow, the venue for the Olympic Cross-Country, Biathlon and Nordic Combined events was on its way to becoming the most popular and most visited of any of the 2002 Olympic venues. The athletes, teams, Media and officials were ecstatic of what they saw or were provided. The international audience marveled over the TV pictures and the perfect setup and grooming of the venue. A new standard in Cross-Country race organization was being set.
John Aalberg had visioned and looked forward to this for almost 5 years. The long process started in 1997, and had included selecting the site from over a dozen proposals, designing most of the details of the venue and the courses, overseeing the construction of the sport facilities, hand picking his competition staff, organizing and directing over a dozen international test events, deciding the details of the grooming and setup, and in the end managing the operations of the Olympic competitions. His original idea of creating a Western atmosphere around the competitions had already become a huge success among the spectators not knowing what to expect at a big Cross-Country event.
The first day of competition on February 9th had brought excitement with Stephania Belmondo breaking her pole up the last hill just in front of thousands of spectators. Her brave and amazing comeback on the last 1 km gave her a surprising Gold Medal — the very first of the 2002 Olympic Games.
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