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The Olympics came to a bad start, and let’s hope they will lead to a good end. First of all, the Georgian luger’s tragic accident at training. Nodar Kumaritashvili flew off the track at 150km per hour and collided with a support beam. He was dead in an instant. The saddest thing about this tragic event is that they were considering padding the beams in the morning but decided not to. This event shook everyone involved in the Olympics, and they honoured his memory with a minute’s silence. Now there’s a wooden fence around the tracks, preventing a similar event. Unfortunately, it’s too late.

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There was trouble at the opening ceremony as well. All the technology involved in lighting the fire failed, because all the torches didn’t come up as they were supposed to. A fair bit of improvisation was needed, but they couldn’t hide how uncomfortable everyone was by this malfunction. Speed skater Catriona LeMay Doan was the worst off since she didn’t get to light the Olympic fire.

You can’t influence the weather, but Vancouver seems to be holding slightly chilly summer Olympics. It’s raining every day and the temperatures are above freezing point all the time. Organisers were already forced to postpone several alpine skiing competitions. Both slopes that were meant to hold the races are simply too soft to withstand the style of skiing these professionals have. The upper part of the slope is snowing all the time and they’re trying to shovel it away, and it’s raining on the lower half. They can’t use chemicals because they’d ruin the slopes, and those have to hold all disciplines.

Everyone is nervously watching the weather report. The current predictions say that the night from Sunday to Monday will bring below zero temperatures. In that case, the snow would freeze and we’d be able to witness some high-quality skiing. It is clear however, that the first to go down the slope would have an incredible advantage over the last ones.

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And another complication. Because my speciality is alpine skiing, I attend all the technical meetings as well. When a public draw isn’t held, and it never is at the Olympics, they decide on start numbers at one of these meetings. The Canadians prepared special stones for this draw and wrote numbers on them. The problem is, these stones weren’t exactly the same shape and this, of course, caused an uproar among the coaches.

As I already mentioned, the first few start numbers will have a distinct advantage over everyone else. Competitors, ranked from 16 to 30 in the WCSL start list, are desperate to get a hold of them. Here’s the problem: Robbie Dixon is the Canadian downhill champion, he’s in good shape and would be capable of getting a medal with a little help from a good start position. The coaches took a look at the stones and saw, that it would be possible for someone who knew what he was looking for to find a particular stone, say number 3 or 4.

As I said, the coaches rebelled. The organisers weren’t prepared for it, but they had to give in to their arguments. Günther Hujara (FIS’s main judge) sided with the coaches at once and demanded they change the stones to balls, identical to the touch. It was late by that point and it was impossible to buy 60 ping pong balls in Whistler. So Hujara proposed they open 60 plastic bottles, which he spotted in the back of the tent, where the meeting took place, and drew numbers twice from 1 to 30. The coaches then agreed this would be a fair draw.

After all these complications they finally settled on a lineup, but it had no real meaning. The downhill race was postponed and the draw was annulled with it. The rules say that when a race is cancelled, the start numbers must be reassigned. So the next meeting will hold a draw as well, and hopefully, the Canadians will be prepared with something a bit more refined than bottle caps.

Urban Laurenčič