After delays and setbacks caused by conditions in Whistler, Chemmy Alcott was finally able to get her Olympic sojourn underway with the Women’s Downhill on Wednesday 17 February.
Racing second in a field of 45, Alcott held the gold position briefly following the crash of event opener Klara Krizova and finished in an impressive 13th overall, narrowly missing out on a top 10 finish.
In fact, Alcott was racing so hard that she crashed into the safety barriers in the finish area before jumping up unharmed. “I just did that to give everyone a close-up look of a proper alpine crash” joked the ski racer. “I just forgot to slow down at the finish”.
The British number one enjoyed taking to the course at Whistler Creekside remarking “it’s the perfect women’s downhill, the best I’ve ever skied”. The ski racer, who is known for her aggressive skiing added “it’s bumpy, it’s icy and it’s great fun. You look at this and you think to yourself ‘this is what we do this sport for’.
“I lost a bit of time at the top in the soft stuff, and that affected my run” commented Alcott, who finished in a time of 1:47.31. “I think I could have gone quicker but I made a few silly mistakes. But it’s the Chemmy way - I went for it totally and when you ski like that, it’s hard to avoid a couple of tiny slips. It’s always like that with me”.
The race was a great Olympic opener for Alcott, who achieved 11th position in the same event in Turin. “The race was an awesome experience. I’m doing a few events here, so that was an amazing way of getting rid of some cobwebs” said the alpine skier. http://www.skiclub.co.uk/
Saturday
Olympic training scaled back to protect snow
VANCOUVER—They're expanding the search for snow to cover bare patches on Cypress Mountain, where freestyle skiing and snowboard events are slated to take place at next week's Winter Olympics.
Officials Saturday also said they've had to cancel two of the five days of training for halfpipe snowboard athletes because of the lack of snow on Cypress.
This past month was the warmest January on record in Vancouver, and the snow at Cypress has been hard to come by. They've moved truckfuls of the stuff from higher parts of the mountain and also have brought it in by helicopter from nearby hills.
Saturday they announced they'll start hauling the white stuff in by helicopter from Yak Peak in the Coquihalla Pass/Coquihalla Highway region, which links the Okanagan area and the interior of B.C. to the lower mainland.
The weather forecasters are calling for slightly cooler temperatures in Vancouver as the week goes on, but not particularly cold. It's supposed to be 11 degrees on Sunday and the forecast shows the lowest high temperature for any day this week will be 6 degrees.
VANOC officials wouldn’t say how much the snow effort is costing. But they said most snow venues haven’t had problems and that overall contingencies for all the venues are helping cover the extra Cypress costs.
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