I only have thirty minutes before the start of the men’s relay here at World Championships, so I had better get going pretty soon, but I wanted to send back a little update on the scene here. It’s totally awesome! That’s my update. OK, gotta go.
No, just kidding, I’ll give you a little more than that. The racing has been really awesome and fun to watch. The highlight of course was watching Alex Harvey and Devon Kershaw win GOLD! I think we all knew that they could do it, but still, it took so long before it sunk in that they had actually done it. Watching the relays has been particularly fun.
I also tried to watch the jumping on Wednesday morning, but it didn’t work very well. This was my view from the good seats at the bottom of the landing hill:
I felt really bad for the guys jumping – I can’t imagine taking off, flying 120 meters through the air, and not even being able to see the landing! Yikes!! So that was kind of a bummer. The jump here in Oslo is pretty cool, so it would have been nice to have a better view.
The fog has generally been pretty bad most days. Along a similar vein, here’s a picture of the women’s relay which I took from the side of the trail literally right next to them:
And one of Jessie Diggins, who skied an awesome anchor leg for the U.S.:
Other highlights include skiing to work in the morning, the free waffles in the media center, asking Marit Bjoergen a question in a press conference, and basically everything about being in Oslo. The only bummer was that today I’m moving from one friend’s house to another friend’s house, so I had to get my 50-pound ski bag on a bus, two trains, and then up from the T stop in Holmenkollen to the media center, which is quite a hike. Luckily a friend helped me carry it part of the way.
The event has really taken over the city of Oslo, and Norwegians are INTO it. The trains are packed every day, standing room only, and there’s a veritable river of people walking up to the venue. The sides of the trails are packed and the cheering is the loudest I’ve ever heard by several factors of magnitude.
Here are some Norwegian ski jumping fans to close out this post.
