Day 1. Men's Downhill training, Whistler

Got up at 4:30am. Took longer than I wanted to get all my equipment together for the day. Eric offered to take me to the main bus stop and arrived just in time for the 6am to Whistler. Skis, boots, camera gear. Bus driver was kind enough to drop me at Whistler Creekside, site of the alpine events. Met Alpine Photo Chief Rick Wilkings for distribution of on-course armbands and lift tickets. My good friend Doug Mills of NYT and I were one of the first in line and got what we needed including an on-site locker for skis and boots. Will save us the hassle of lugging that junk around all day!

Doug and I took the gondola up and skied down to the halfway point, got on course and scouted out the possible shooting positions. I don't know, but I didn't see any that jumped out at me as anything great. Several other photographers had skied down from the start house and didn't like it up higher either. We settled on a spot that my host Eric had recommended. It worked out fine.


Met jury member Peter Obernauer who lives in Kitzbuhel, Austria and runs the Hahnenkamm, the bad ass of the world cup circuit. Nice guy to know! Here he is pictured at left with course worker Richard Prokopanko who was handing out food from this tray of goodies. The course workers also had a large stash of wine and schnapps they were hitting later!





Training got off on time, but the fog came in about half way through. Course was on hold for several hours. Doug and I got out of there through a back trail and saved some time. Spent the afternoon editing and sending to Corbis.