First, I was able to learn what some of the acronyms scattered around these Games mean. At the Sliding Center, for instance, we get lots of calls from two women who work for "VCC". They usually tell us about issues that someone else told them, and now that I know that VCC stands for Venue Communication Center, that makes so much more sense! He explained that OBS stands for Olympic Broadcast Service. These people are take all the footage of the Games and then sell it to the various networks around the world. Their snowsuit uniforms look a lot like Italy's, and I think Romania's too.
My conversation with Craig was scattered throughout my browsing Cleanevent's Manual for the Village. It's confusing enough that there's Whistler Village (the center of town) and Athlete's Village (about 15 minutes outside of town in a highly secure area housing competitors and their crews). The abbreviation for the Whistler Athlete's Village is WVL, for Vancouver it's VVL, and on a 2nd Part Pass that allows access to both, it's just VL. Looking over this book, however, I saw a document containing meeting minutes from October that referred to the venue as OVW, for Olympic Village Whistler.
I commented on this to Craig, and he agreed that it was confusing and explained that various groups throughout (and during) the process refer to the same place in a slew of different ways. The construction team may call something one thing, the Overlay department another, and the venue manager still another. From my position at the Cleanevent Help Desk, this jumble of terms is often difficult to unravel. When Vicky or Lisa from VCC call with an issue, they can only describe the location as well as the person who told it to them, and then I have to gather as many details as possible so that I can ensure my team knows where to go. Each (or most, anyway) trailer at the WSC is labeled - for instance, ours is 7-2 because we are the second trailer in Lot 7. I was surprised to find, however, that the Sliding Center is the only venue labeled as well as that. Apparently it was at the venue manager's discretion. Craig expressed frustration about this, and then proceeded to show me on CE's database how well the Australian Formula 1 labels their venue. Every single location, down to individual porter toilets and propane gas tanks, is micromanaged with a sticker on it that says "Problems with this facility? Call ______ and site #----". In CE's system each number is attached to all important information about it, including what area it's located in and who is in charge of handling problems. Rather than receiving calls such as "The portapotties near the Workforce Break Tent need toilet paper" and then making Jan check 12 toilets, we would be getting calls like "4014 needs toilet paper". If it was something more complex than that and we had follow-up questions, the contact's name, phone number, and email would be attached to that reference number. That would make our lives so much easier!
So far this post has nothing to do with the title, eh? I'm getting there...
I went to Blenz in the afternoon, the home-base for all the interns. I'll have to do a blog spotlighting Blenz, complete with pictures. I love this place!
After getting my internet fix I met up with the rest of the girls, who were buying awesome bags at great sale prices. I get bored with shopping exceptionally easily, however, so I asked Colleen if she wanted to go check out the Jamaican House a few doors down. I had seen a T-shirt in the window that I instantly fell in love with, and we had heard that members of the 1988 Jamaican Bobsled Team were signing autographs. (If you haven't seen Cool Runnings, go watch it. Now. If you have seen it, watch it again. Love it.)
We headed down into the basement of The Savage Beagle, which has been turned into the Jamaican House for the Games. First we stopped at the Jamaican team's sponsor table. MoneyGram, a service like Western Union, had giveaway baggies that included a small Jamaican flag, a lanyard, a keychain, a signed poster, and a book-on-tape about the '88 team. The girls there then directed me to another table where the shirts were sold. I got a green one with a shield on the back and a small logo on the front. It's awesome! (Photo to come).
From there we headed upstairs, where Devon Harris was hanging out signing autographs and posing for pictures. We had to wait our turn a little bit, but then I introduced myself and asked him to sign my shirt. We chatted with him the whole time, and it turns out he's now a motivational speaker. He gave me his card and I'm going to try to bring him to JWU this spring! He also wrote a children's book and has another book coming out soon. I told him I worked at the Sliding Center and asked if he'd be at the bobsled competitions later this week, but he said he didn't have tickets. "I can get you in!" I exclaimed, then reason caught up with me. "Do you have accreditation?" He didn't, so I explained that if he did I could have gotten him a 2nd Part Pass but without the initial accreditation it was worthless. As it is, he's leaving on Wednesday for a speaking engagement. All in all, this was an EPIC athlete encounter!
Me and Devon Harris - a legend!
That evening Craig Madigan was taking all the interns out for a drink. He told me this earlier in the day at WVL, to which I said "Oh." When he and the other girl in the office just stared at me I explained "I don't drink, but I'll still go". We hadn't been there long when the maintenance guy, "Super Dave" Brown, offered to take anyone who was interested to the Medals Ceremony. All of us from the Providence campus, plus Charlotte Sarah (an honorary Prov girl) jumped at the opportunity and grabbed our coats to follow Dave down to Medals Plaza. He has a buddy (Steve) who works for VANOC, and all we had to do was hop in line, no tickets required. We went through the metal detector before anyone even asked us for tickets, and then we gave our instructed response "We were in the Standby line". Those six words were enough to let us glide right in. Once we crossed that threshold, Steve quickly ushered us up to the front and into the Mosh Pit, directly adjacent to the Olympic Family area. SO AWESOME! We felt like VIPs!
We were so stoked to be there!
The guy you can see in the screen on the back said his name was Fred and he was the emcee before the ceremony began. I turned to the group and asked if anyone had seen the movie A Guy Thing. Only Jessie had, and she agreed that he looked like the guy from the pharmacy who ends up cooking the rehearsal dinner. I just IMDb'ed him, and he is!
The first medals presented were for Women's Skeleton. I watched heats 1 and 2 on Thursday, but had to work from 12-10:30PM on Friday and couldn't watch the finals. Brit Amy Williams took gold, the first individual gold medal for Great Britain at the Winter Olympics in 30 years. Two Germans finished behind her, Kerstin Szymkowiak earned silver and Anja Huber took bronze. While the British national anthem played, I continually glanced away from the flags and back at the athletes, watching Kerstin become completely overwhelmed with emotion. It was already a magical night.
Kerstin - GER (left), Amy - GRB (center), Anja - GER (right)
We were quite close to the stage, as you can see.
The next medals awarded were the biggest deal of the night. The first Canadian gold in Whistler was awarded to Jon Montgomery for Men's Skeleton. Late on Friday night I could hear the cheering in the spectator areas all the way from my office in Lot 7. Canada was pumped! As I mentioned before, we were standing right next to the Olympic Family section, so his family were all gathered there. As the athletes make their exit across the stage, many of them throw their bouquets into the crowd; Jon threw his perfectly into his mother's arms. Not long after, Colleen received a text from her mom saying that she saw us on T.V.! We'll be going again on Tuesday (now that I have Steve's number) so watch for us!
Martins Dukurs - LAT (left), Jon - CAN (center), Alexander Tretyakov - AUT (right)
Jon Montgomery's family after he threw the bouquet
The next medals awarded were for Ladies' Super-G, in which American Lindsey Vonn finished 3rd behind Andrea Fischbacher of Austria and Tina Maze of Slovenia. The other girls screamed "Yeah Lindsey!!!" a few times and she waved right at them!
Lindsey Vonn getting her bronze medal - this one's for you, Prof. Zacchilli! I know it's not an autograph, but it's the best that I've managed so far
Tina - SLO (left), Andrea -AUT (center), Lindsey - USA (right)
The last medals awarded were for Ski Jumping, Long Hill Individual. The Swiss Simon Ammann won gold, and he was the happiest person on stage that night. Something about his smile radiated positive energy that outshone all the other athletes before him. I can't explain it, but I could just feel his joy so strong. It was truly touching. He seemed to be besties with silver medalist Adam Malysz of Poland, which was also really cute but I felt like bronze medalist Gregor Schlierenzauer of Austria was a tad left out. Even still, it was a great group to close out the medals presentations with!
Adam - POL (left), Simon - SUI (center), Gregor - AUT (right)
All in all, Saturday night was one to never forget.
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