I bought tickets from various sources for these games – some directly through the Canadian Channel (VANOC), some through their “Fan to Fan” scal….I mean “MarketPlace,” some through Craigslist in Seattle and some through the US distributor – CoSport. The Nordic Combined was, I believe, my second ticket purchase, after some crazy expensive hockey tickets I bought through CoSport a long long time ago. The Nordic Tickets were all that remained on the CoSport site when they released their final round of tickets for sale. At the time I was just excited to get tickets for an event at Whistler – even though I really wanted Sliding Sports. Little did I know that I got tickets to one of the most difficult events to get tickets to, and also that an American would be a contender for a medal at this event for the first time ever since the inception of the event at the first Winter games in Chamonix in 1924.

I rolled up at the “Whistler Olympic Park” before 9am for the first start of the Nordic Combined which was the Ski Jump off the Normal Hill at 10am. Naturally, I assumed we were really early, so I leisurely strolled towards that park taking pictures along the way. I strolled, I strolled, and I strolled. Jesus Christ – where’s the entrance to this place. I went through security and kept walking. I kid you not, it must have been 2-3 km to the entrance. And it’s not like it’s a straight walk on some asphalt path. No, oh no games fans you will trek uphill in the snow for most of it. It’s a blast.

Finally, I arrived at the Ski Jumping venue. It was just as majestic as you imagine when you see it on TV. Beautifully situated in the Callaghan Valley and ringed by mountains and gorgeous scenery. The hills are truly majestic – towering hundreds of feet over the valley floor, it looks terrifying to imagine that soon men will leap off these ramps and land, soundly, on the floor below.

The competition was really exciting – each jumper seemed to leap further than the next, and against all odds, no one fell. Mid way through the competition, there were all sorts of delays as the judges had to keep moving the start point. Some very strange weather began to ensue where it literally went from bright and sunny, to foggy, to rainy and back to sunny in a matter of like 15 minutes. This was wreaking havoc on the competition and all of the jumpers began to jump less and less far. An American jumper was in 2nd place at the end of the competition much to the shock of those around me.

Now a moment to describe the crowd. Never before have I seen such a large crowd of Finns, Swedes, and Swiss in one place. Where the hell did they all come from – as I haven’t seen anyone wearing anything except “Team Canada” outfits in Vancouver. Fascinating. My personal favorite were the Swiss supporters, as most were dressed as cows with giant bells and flagons of (presumably) fine ales and wines. So not only cows, but cows with flagons of wine. You don’t see this kind of stuff every day – the Olympics truly to bring out the best in people.

I’m really learning more and more that to some the Olympics are more of a drinking sport than anything else. On one gondola ride up to the sliding centre I witnessed two guys chug a bottle of what appeared to be Kahlua (how DO you chug that) to ensure they finished it before going through security. They were sort of mumbling shit already before this, but after completing the bottle I made sure to get the hell away from them as they were beyond annoying.

After the jumping competition was complete – and just as the clouds were ready to bust into rain/snow – we were told the next part, the cross country race, wouldn’t begin for 3 hours. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that they need to get the athletes from one place to another but 3 hours seems a bit absurd. So I walked another 2km part way to the Cross Country Stadium but on the way caught some of the action in the most bizarre of all Olympic Sports – the Biathlon.

Walking up to the Biathlon stadium, there were all these strange speakers around the forest that had random announcements. And more than normal at these games, they tended to be in French only. So you’d be on a quiet, almost pastoral path and all of a sudden hear a random fake cheer of a crowd and “Les legendes Biathlon….Erik Bjornalordaloralan.” Something about it cracked me up each time – I guess perhaps I’ve never kept up on who the “legends” of Biathlon were. I was initially considering buying a walk up ticket to the Biathlon to see some of the action, but when I realized I could see most of the course from just standing there – that’s precisely what I did.

Watching the large Scandinavian skiers with massive rifles strapped to their backs race across the snow it gave me pause as I wondered if perhaps this sport was born as a sort of “Scandinavian Drive By” shooting type situation. If so – perhaps we need an update – I’m thinking Swedish dudes wearing Balaclavas riding on snowmobiles with machine guns spraying fire at cows or something. Overheard a son ask his father if those are BB guns that the atheletes are carrying, to which his father replied “Hah – no they are .22 caliber rifles and if they shot you with them they could even kill you.” Wow, that’s cheery, pops.

On the way back to the Cross Country Stadium, all hell broke loose with the weather. What was a gentle rain turned into a downpour, which then turned into basically a blizzard. In the midst of this, Quatchi (the Sasquatch) and Miga (the ½ Orca ½ Kermode Bear) mascots were interacting with children. As I pass, Miga waved at me, and I responded with “Hey Sea Bear” which seemed to make him/her/it happy. Moments later, Quatchi and Miga were unceremoniously thrown into the back of a snowmobile and carted away as the weather was becoming too much for them to handle.

So after killing another 2 hours eating stuff – I took my place at the Cross Country Stadium. Now I won’t bore you with the results and details, but I’ll tell you that Johnny Spillane – an American in like 6th place going into this busted out of nowhere early on in the event after a Finn fell. Then out of literally nowhere a Japanese dude skied up and was leading by an enormous margin coming into the last 100 meters of the race. Then something weird happened to the Japanese guy – he just sorta went away and Johnny Spillane busted ahead. Finally – against any possible logic, physics or the such – a French dude that the announcers had been assuring us would be a contender all day came out of nowhere (seriously, did he emerge from a snowbank or something) and beat Spillane by .1 seconds. What….the…..F-word. What a bizarre sport. Totally thrilling though and one of the coolest things I’ve been to.