The preliminary races for the Vancouver world cup are complete. All of the countries present have gotten a taste of what it might be like at the Games in 2010. Although the aesthetics will have more pizazz during the Olympics and the pressure will certainly be substantially increased, it feels like something more than just a world cup.
For starters, the number of volunteers walking around the building seems to outnumber the skaters, coaches and officials put together. Everywhere you turn there is someone wearing a blue Vancouver world cup vest. Some of the faces are familiar from the skating community, but most of them are foreign to me. They all seem to be incredibly happy to be in their volunteer posts though, even if they're stuck in some small out of the way corner of the building without a view of the racing.
Almost our entire program from Calgary is here to support, watch and learn from this world cup. They took the long bus ride on Thursday to be able to see all of the race days. The ride home will be the kicker as they leave at the end of the racing and drive right through the night. I guess Monday is a write-off!
Today's racing started off well for the Calgary group as Jessica Hewitt skated a great 1500m race to qualify for the world cup competition. She made some adjustments to her race strategy based on what she learned in Salt Lake City and it paid off. Unfortunately her fearlessness caught up to her in the 1000m and she was disqualified while trying to pass from 3rd to 1st. A tough lesson to learn as Hewitt won't be able to skate in the repechage on Sunday to get back into the world cup. Her only events now are the 1500m and the relay.
Jessica Gregg had a tougher start to this weekend than last. She was eliminated in the 1000m and will have to go through the repechage early Saturday morning. She was in qualifying position until the last corner when she wasn't able to shut down an inside pass. Shortly after that her 500's went according to plan and Gregg has advanced to the world cup competition.
Michael Gilday also had some rough going this morning as his 1500m came up just short. Again he found himself in qualifying position until the very end of the race. He took some time to refocus at the hotel and came back with some more composed skating in the 1000m event and qualified for the next rounds.
Both the men's and women's relay teams advanced to the semi-finals. It's important to note however that on the men's side, both the Koreans and the Chinese did not advance. Falls caused both teams to be upset after only the quarter=finals. This will make for an interesting final as Canada's toughest competition left in the hunt is the USA. The team from south of the border is skating quite well and just beat out Canada last weekend in Salt Lake City for the silver. Canada's eyes are definitely on the gold.
The crowd today was slim. but this is not unusual for a Friday. Tomorrow's attendance is suspected to be over three thousand. Considering how loud the fans were today, tomorrow should be very intense! I think they will play a big role in pumping up our team and providing a lot of energy in the building.
The world cup portion of the racing tomorrow will be the next step in this Olympic test event. There will be increased media coverage, immediate interviews and streaming video all over the building. Cameras will be in the athletes faces almost everywhere they turn. For those of us that haven't been to an Olympic Games (including myself) it helps us to imagine what it is going to be like. I'm looking forward to it!
JC
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