Day 9: Training and Biathlon

As much crowd as my camera could fit

Today was pretty relaxed; we got to sleep in all the way up to 7!! Once we got to WOP, we jumped on skis and got an hour and a half of solid training in. We were on hairies again, and although the snow was sluggish, the grip was infallible, quite a nice treat after the classic conditions last time. Everything seemed kind of slow after the last couple days of chaos, because there were no ski jumping or Nordic events going on at all. After our ski, we decided to book it over to the biathlon pursuit race. And then we found the crowds. Crazy masses of Germans, Norwegians everywhere, everybody singing their national anthems (I’m assuming, I couldn’t understand anything), waving flags and pumping the air in random, sporadic doses. Every time someone would shoot, the whole crowd would erupt in either cheers or groans, varying with the outcome. The whole atmosphere was nice, but the results was that we could hardly see the stadium, and a view of the big screen was only available when you followed the gap between the people in front of you, as they did the same with the people in front of them. So basically, a lot of shuffling was involved. We were eventually able to squeeze our way onto a hill, which offered a much better view.

Of course, the big news in biathlon was our athlete Leguellec being started 30 seconds early, which means although he was skiing near the leaders, he was really back 30 seconds. If that doesn’t mess with your head in an Olympic race, I don’t know what would. Apparently there were mistakes made in the women’s race as well, earlier in the morning, and so they switched the starters to avoid more mistakes being made. I guess it didn’t exactly work...
Tomorrow is SPRINTS, I am so excited, they are for sure going to be the highlight of this week. Everything should be mucho fantastic, AND, to top it all off, they are calling for nice weather for the next FOUR DAYS. Whoda thunk it?

That’s all folks!!

Michelle :)

PS I know (now) that the names written beneath my pictures from yesterday's blog are a little mixed up. And yes, I am aware of the irony, considering I was flaunting my newfound ski expertise in that same blog. So yes, my apologies.