Venue Tour – WOP

Welcome to WOP!

The inukshuk at the bus stop at the Ski Jump

Our first venue tour as part of Cleanevent Academy was the Whistler Olympic Park, better known as WOP. This site has four different areas – the Main Transportation Area (non-competition), Ski Jump, Cross-Country Skiing, and Biathlon.

Map of Whistler Olympic Park

Spectators will come to the Main Transportation Area either by BC Transit bus or by car, the latter of which must be parked in one of four lots outside the security checkpoint. From the security line, a coach bus (different from the BC Transit bus) will take people up to the Ski Jump area and drop them off. From there, they can either walk into that venue or take one of two other buses to see either Cross-Country Skiing or Biathlon.

We visited the Cross-Country Skiing site first. Five years ago, it was just the heavily-forested Callahan Valley. The majority of the trees had to be cleared, trails had to be blazed, and the course had to be built. After the Games, all the buildings will be taken down and trees will be replanted, but the trails will remain open to the public for use as part of the “legacy” of the site. In addition to skiing in the winter, the trails will probably be used by mountain-bikers in the summer.

Our second stop was the Biathlon course. This is an interesting event that I’m just beginning to understand a little more about. The athletes first do several laps of their cross-country skiing course, then stand to shoot their rifles at targets the size of baseballs. They proceed to do some more laps, then lay on their stomachs to shoot targets the size of golf balls. The catch is that for every target they miss, they have to ski another lap.

What makes biathlon even more difficult is what happens to the athlete’s body. Obviously cross-country skiing is a physically demanding sport and it therefore increases the heart rate. For shooting, it is ideal to have a slow heart rate, steady breathing, and a clear mind to focus on aim. Biathlon competitors don’t have the advantage of the first two elements, which makes the third all the harder to achieve.

The Ski Jump venue was last on our agenda. This competition will be the first event, yielding the first medals of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics Games. Each skier gets two runs off the jump – just two runs to prove their ability.

Despite what it looks like on T.V., skiers do not get launched up into the air in ski jumping. The top part of the run has groves for the skis to rest in, and then right at the lip of the jump there is a 10 degree declining slope; the skiers don’t go up, but rather the ground just drops away, creating an optical illusion. We were lucky enough to be able to see some women practicing their runs.

At the foot of the ski jump during a practice session

Volunteers are packing down the snow on the ski jump between runs. The dots crossing the path are the meter markers

Our Cleanevent Academy instructor, Scott Williams (not to be confused with the WSC venue manager, Scott Parnell), stressed to us how cool it will be to see events happening here – either in person or on T.V. – after having seen the behind-the-scenes action before the venue was opened to spectators. The camp and the employee break rooms at all the venues have T.V.s that will be broadcasting the coverage, so I hope I get to see some of each event throughout the Games.