Canmore WC

Miscellaneous

Dec 28

Written By Patrick O'Brien

Some more pictures from the GRP skiers time in Canmore…

Riding the shuttle to the venue

Headed to the venue

Most of the WC teams stayed in three or four different hotels so we had to time our shuttle rides up to the venue from the Radisson hotel carefully. Once the racing started the shuttle drivers did a great job ferrying athletes so we never had to wait much more than 15 minutes before another bus would come along.

Similar to the Quebec World Cup, the event organizers provided all the athletes with a warm and well stocked lounge for changing and refueling after workouts and races.

Biathlon range house/athlete lounge

Looking out over the wax trailers and stadium area. The US wax room is second to the left. A quick trip with skis to get trailside!

The whole town was really supportive of the event going on in Canmore. The drive up the the venue was filled with flags from the different nations competing. Local school children had even drawn welcoming signs that were hung throughout the wax rooms and lodges! This sign was right inside the entrance of the warming hut for the NZ athletes

Perfect tracks every day in Canmore!

It was amazing to see the amount of time and resources involved in hosting a World Cup. Course access was tightly regulated throughout the week with designated training and wax testing times. All athletes and servicemen had to be accredited with their specific bibs to even access the trails the days leading up to the races. I spent a few bus rides digging through my bag afraid I had forgotten my athlete bib!

Techs running countless laps and skis in the stadium area. Norway apparently brought 90 pairs of test skis- 9 sets of 10 pairs each with a different grind and hand structure applied over the top

More testing…

One aspect of a World Cup that I hadn’t given much thought to before Quebec and Canmore was the amount of work that goes into shooting and editing all the footage that goes into the TV production. Part of the reason for such strict crowd control and the kilometers of fencing is to ensure that on race day the cameras still have clear shots of the athletes competing. Almost every meter of the courses in Canmore were covered from some angle by TV crews either from the crane mounted stadium camera to the mobile snowmobile cameras. The morning of the guys 15k classic race when I was skiing I had a chance to stop and talk to one of the camera boom operators who was the high point of the course practicing his shots for the upcoming race. The whole setup was really impressive and looked to take a huge amount of skill to capture the athletes whizzing by.

All the components for the boom and platform were snowmobiled 2 kilometers up to the highpoint of the course

The unit was counter-balanced with free weights and joystick operated. Left side controlled the camera zoom and angle, right side controlled the direction of the video camera at the end of the boom

The unit also had video monitors with live feeds from the TV crew directing in the stadium below. That way the production crew can instruct the camera operators to follow certain athletes as the race breaks apart or shoot a specific type of shot for the TV production

Here are some pictures I shot from the the Sprint race on Friday and the Pursuit race Saturday. It was great to see so many US fans out on the trails at Canmore cheering on the racers. And a big congrats to all the athletes for some great performances!