The Sochi Adventure
A year from now, the Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi, Russia. Sochi, a city on the Black Sea only about 10 kilometers from Georgia, is the most southern site of the Winter Olympics. Googling Sochi, one finds pictures of palm trees but we would be racing in the mountains above the city. Last year’s World Cups in Moscow and Rybinsk, Russia left us with some very memorable stories and the week in Sochi proved to be no less interesting or exciting.
Travelling to Sochi was an adventure in itself. We first took a charter flight with lots of other athletes, coaches, and techs from Zurich to Sochi. Skiers don’t travel light and the plane was way overweight. Even with ten or more rows of luggage in the cabin, lots of people didn’t get their bags until several days later.
Our team was lucky though and all of our stuff made it on the plane including in some of these seats.
It was a bit of a sketchy flight. One layer of Simi’s window was open and I wasn’t the only one who screamed on landing. In Sochi, our bags were loaded into trucks and we boarded buses which would take us to Krasnaya Polyana, the town where all the outdoor venues would be hosted. It was about an hour and a half bus ride because there was so much construction happening on the road. It was dark outside but still obvious that there were roads, bridges, tunnels, railroads, and buildings being built all along the length of our drive even after 11pm. Before the Olympic bid was won, there was only one chairlift in the valley which was also the edge of a National park so everything is going to be brand new.
When we arrived at Krasnaya Polyana we had to wait for quite awhile for accreditation and this was my first glimpse at the high security of the region. Just in the parking lot, there were cameras and armed guards everywhere.
A lot of the security guards and police were very serious but some were more eager to try out their broken English. Here’s one guy who wanted to get into this picture of Randy Gibbs, a US wax tech and I.
By the time we were done with accreditation it was getting very late but we still had a long ways to go before we reached our beds. We went through some security checkpoints, where some of us had to turn on our laptops and phones to prove they were actually what we said they were and then we took a gondola up to the top of a mountain where the biathlon and Nordic venues were held. For the games there will be 2 or 3 gondolas and a tram up to the ridge to accommodate the higher traffic but only one is finished so far.
It was dark during our first gondola ride but we took the trip later in the week during the day and were able to see some the mountains and area.
At the top of the gondola was a hotel where we checked in and got our room keys. From there we boarded some modified ambulance looking vans and we rallied through some mudpits of a construction zone on our way to the cottages where we would be staying.
Newell in the back of the shuttle
We were all a little dazed by this point and since it was about 2am by this point we were very ready to find our beds. The cottages of the athlete were very spacious with rooms much bigger than we normally find in Europe.
This was our team’s “cottage” in the athlete’s village. Each one had a bunch of bedrooms off a large open common room area. It was nice to feel like a home. Also check out all the snow!
The next day we skied for the first time and this brought on more adventures finding the trails. The cross country stadium is only temporary for the games and the biathlon stadium is permanent. We accidentally took an ambulance van to the biathlon stadium on our first morning here and then walked around for awhile looking for the cross country stadium since we couldn’t find anyone who spoke English and also knew where the stadium was. In our wanderings, we came across the workers quarters.
Unfortunately they’re not quite as nice as our lodgings
There was construction happening everywhere as the rest of the athlete’s village was being finished as well as other hotels, restaurants and other infrastructure. The plan is to have the area be a tourist destination after the Games. There is lots of work to be done in the next year but the work was being done 24/7 through all types of weather.
Lots of cranes and workers on roofs. I was always a little worried as the men didn’t seem very well secured on the snowy roofs.
Despite the construction, it’s a very beautiful location with great mountain views
These snowmobile carriages were the actual mode of transportation between the cottages and the race venue. The drivers usually went very fast and it was always a bumpy and exciting ride
The courses here were hard with lots of hilly skiing. We were all excited to test out the new courses though. Friday was a skate sprint and a great day for the team. In qualification we had five girls and two guys in the top 17 and after the finals all seven of us finished in the top 21!
Here I am racing in my first sprint final! I led my quarterfinal and then finished 4th in my semifinal after some tactically horrible skiing and was ecstatic to hear I grabbed a lucky loser spot into the final! This was a long term goal for me and above my season expectations. I was pretty tired by this point and didn’t have much left so I finished 6th but it was still awesome. Now I have the confidence to know that I can fight for a podium position! Kikkan won the race which was especially impressive since she had been fighting a cold all week.
Saturday was a 15km skiathlon for the women. The classic course was really fun with lots of ups and downs. The skate course was incredibly hard. It dropped down out of the skate course in a steep fast downhill and then climbed back out of the hole for a long time. I think it was a 7 or 8 minute V1 climb in the snowy slow conditions. I had a tough day with some tired legs and a fall in a bad spot where I got spun around a couple times and lost all my momentum as well as the pack I was skiing in. It was still a good experience to ski on the trails and a really good day for some of my teammates. Liz and Sadie both had career bests in 8th and 24th!
Snowy conditions actually kept the pack together for longer than normal and led to some congestion during the classic leg (USSA photo)
The final day of racing was a classic team sprint. Sadie and I teamed up together for a great day. The sun was out after the snowstorm and it was hot racing! It was also tricky waxing conditions and neither of us had kick for our opening legs. Halfway through our semifinal heat we had been dropped off the back of the pack. But the techs did an amazing job and got us great skis for the final legs. I caught the leaders on my last leg and then Sadie dropped them for a big win! Last year we raced our first team sprint together and didn’t come close to making the final so to win our semifinal with the fastest time of either heats was a HUGE improvement. In the final we were in contention the entire time and ended up 5th just seconds off the podium. This was an improvement over our 7th place finish together a couple weeks ago in Liberec so we’re moving up!
Getting interviewed together after our race
Happy teammates after an awesome race!
Russian bathroom signs are very descriptive