The men’s Olympic downhill is finally a go. I just made the trek – about a 15 minute, steep hike – up to the finish here at Whistler Creekside. The athletes are warming up, and the fans are pouring in.
The go is a relief to organizers, fans and athletes who have been dealing with several days of delays because of warm weather and rain.
This morning there is no fog, but some cloud cover which could make the light a bit flat. It’s not too cold outside and you could see the snow peeling off athlete’s skis toward the bottom run to the gondola.
On the hill I hear it’s a different story. In the last 48-56 hours hundreds of volunteers have been working on the hill. Then shoveled and slipped some more. They ran lines of folks fence to fence pushing off the soft stuff. They were up overnight, came in early morning and came back again to keep working. Because of that, there will be a race.
The US starters are Andrew Weibrecht, bib 4, Steven Nyman, bib 6, Bode Miller, running bib 8, Marco Sullivan, bib 27.
This is anybody’s race. Look back to the 2006 Torino downhill when Antoine Deneriaz won gold out of nowhere. He had finished no better than 7th that season and was ranked 38 in the world.
Listen to what Bode Miller had to say recently.
“I feel like I’m coming into these games in the unique position of still growing stronger. I’m psyched to be here and I’m ready to run. It’s a unique opportunity to be here and in a lot of cases it allows you to elevate your intensity, your focus and your inspiration to a level that you couldn’t achieve on your own and that’s unique to the Olympics. I think there’s something extra to be put on that.”
Sounds like a different person, doesn’t he?
All the US guys have a good shot. Miller is a threat all the time and he sounds motivated. Weibrecht is going to gun for sure, that’s just his style. This could be a great course for Nyman, lots of elements – including one part called the “Toilet Bowl.” Sullivan is fired up, too. His entire family is here, including his Dad, who I had dinner with two nights ago. I just saw him walking to the finish and gave him a big thumbs up. He gave me one right back.
Stay tuned folks.

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