From the Tech’s Point of View

Yesterday everything went smoothly both in terms of the conditions for the racers as well as the weather. Those who followed the Olympics on TV, saw that we were treated to a radiantly beautiful winter day.

The combination of the Alpine women’s competition was held under ideal conditions. Fortunately, the Rennläuferinnen were spared from bad falls this time. It is noteworthy to mention that Anja Persson, who had a bad fall yesterday on the descent, fought and won the bronze medal today. Just as with the cross-country skier Petra Majdic, who won a bronze medal just after having broken four ribs. Anja managed a similar feat after a horrific fall yesterday. Hats off to those with such a competitive spirit. Unfortunately for Petra the Olympics are over!

The individual biathlon races of men and women were dominated by the Norwegians. Safe shooting and fast running were their trademark today as it has been so often in recent years.

Between the ladies race held in the morning and the men’s race in the early afternoon, technicians were forced change the ski and wax choice. The ladies’ race was held on raw coarse grained snow which was a little moist only on the surface . With increasing solar elevation, the track was became somewhat wet except, of course, in the sections which are located in the forest. Between races, it was called for the technical teams to test different grinds and waxes. The art was to find a good balance between the wet sunny areas and the dry sections in the forest. The tendancy was here, as previously reported by me, to be primarily finer grinds than what we would have ran in comparable conditions in Europe.

For the next 5 days of Toko weather report from Bern predicts more nice weather.

Let us look forward therefore to the 15 km Pursuit race in the women’s cross country and the super-G Men’s Alpine competition.

From Whistler nordic Park

Steffen