Made it to the land of no snow, otherwise known as Cypress Mountain, for men’s moguls this afternoon. It is a nice ride up from Vancouver, with great views of the city from the slopes of Cypress. Once here however, the weather was about 40 degrees and the sun was out. It was nice for photos, toes and fingers, but not so nice for the mogul run which had the consistency of sugar. Nice spring skiing here at the winter Olympics.
I got to the moguls venue about two hours before the start of the qualifying round to get a lay of the land/snow/dirt/rock. I brought mountaineering crampons with me, so with those I headed up the steep pitch on the side of the course. Moguls are run on a %28 hill, so the going was tough and I was weighted down with cumbersome photo gear. I kept going higher, thinking I would come to a good photo position. But, alas, the lack of snow here at Cypress has struck again; all the photo positions have been washed out. Instead of leveled and slightly elevated snow blocks along the side of the course, there was a gully of rock and slushy snow. Even after finding the highest ground I could next to the barrier fence I could barely see over the netting and onto the course. I finally resorted to moving further away from the course and finding an angle to shoot down on the final jump from behind. It was less than ideal, but made a fairly nice photo. (see the first photo)
For the finals, I did no such fooling around on the high ground. I planted myself in the finishing area and the let the skiers come to me.
For a while it looked like Canada might place really well, with two of their skiers in the gold and silver position.
In the end, it was a stellar run by another Canadian Alexandre Bilodeau who took home the gold. It was the first time that a Canadian had won gold on their home soil.
Our one local in the event Patrick Deneen had a good qualifying run, but took a bad crash in the finals.
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