I thought you might want a peek at what it is like to be a Olympic Volunteer. Tell me to stop if you can no longer stand it!!

Prologue:

It was February 1980 when Deb and I decided to "Take the road less traveled" and ended up in the Peace Corp. Some thing about "volunteering" has stuck with us and when the call went out for Olympic volunteers two years ago we decided "What the heck, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity". I figured I would be ensconced in a nice warm trailer somewhere managing the Olympic network, or building/repairing PC's in a warehouse. I made the fatal mistake of checking the level "Expert" next to the "Skier" box on my application.

What followed has left me trembling with fear and trepidation as the first day of volunteering has come. SLOC routed my name (even before the interview) to the SnowBasin race organizers and 15 months ago I received a letter (which I wish I had hung on to) that basically read me the riot act on making a commitment to work the World Cup Race in February, 2001. If I wanted to have ANY chance of working the Olympics, I had to make a commitment to work the World Cup Events. So, being the diligent volunteer, I signed up for the World Cup (Men's). You didn't hear about the World Cup held at Snow Basin last year? Are you sure? Well, that is because it was cancelled, due to HEAVY snow. 1 million cubic feet of snow, by one estimate, that was lovingly removed by a rapidly diminishing cadre of 500 volunteers with shovels. We would have had better success digging the Panama Canal with teaspoons than clearing that course in time to run a race. Out of 5 days, it snowed 4. Snow HEAVY. Snowed with a vengeance.

Here was my schedule then:

4:30 Wake up, make coffee, eat cereal, drive to SnowBasin

6:00 Ride the lifts to "Worker City"

6:05 - 10:00am Shovel snow, lots of snow.

10:00 - 11:00am Sit exhausted while race officials determine that the race should be cancelled.

11:00am - 5:00pm Shovel snow

5:00pm Drive home

6pm Throw clothes in laundry, throw food in stomach, throw self in bed.

4:30am next day: Repeat

By Sunday there were maybe 200 folks left, maybe a 100 by the end of the day (5pm). "Oh, the race was cancelled? Well, we can roll up all this netting then and get ready for the races next week." No rest for the wicked......

It was honestly the absolutely worst experience I have ever had, on or off skis. I was so tired that I went home and dropped into bed hoping never to wake up. At least, never wake up on the first day of the Olympics...

Ah, but I DID wake up this morning. I put on the $600 "Official" Marker donated volunteer uniform. Had coffee, cereal, and drove to Snowbasin. Having suffered through 3 of the most remarkably uninformative training events. Having sat through a venue training that one of my team members snored through. Having had the worst possible first experience at "working a race" (its legendary!). I stepped off the bus and into the Olympics.

Well, not exactly. The Olympics start Friday with the Opening Ceremony. Today was a setup day that was free of aching fatigue but had a lion share of snow shoveling. I am leader of Course Crew 14 ( I was told by a team member that I was leader because as I rookie I was less likely to "try anything" daring -- TRUE!). My team was originally 10 individuals, 2 of which never showed (sold their uniforms on e-bay is the usual suspicion). One team member is hanging in the balance as she evaluates weather she wants to continue since this was an "easy" day and she is "wupped". I have a couple of others that will miss a day or two during the 12 days we are in action (and only 12 days, please!) so we could be as small as 6 people during some of the days and we may lose one or two to injury anyway. Well, that just leaves more snow for the rest of us...!

Snow is the enemy. For a downhill race, that sounds strange but it is absolutely the case. The perfect course is a two mile long solid ice driveway at 45 degrees. Killer. Its like the skeleton or bobsled event but without the walls and performed on skis. Personally, I don't get it. It seems insane. More on that later.

A good part of the morning we sat. Just sat. Life is good. We finally got on the lift about 9:30am. We shoveled snow both away from and then to Women's A-net 2 at Paintbrush Meadow. Did some slipping then packed it in. About 6 hours in all. Very cool! I could do THIS for 12 days.

They are freezing the course tonight so there will be less fence work and more course work tomorrow. My day starts at 3:45am. You know what a "morning person" I am. I gotta go.

Life will be different if it snows. Snow is the enemy. Pray for no snow.

Pete

P.S. Debbie is a volunteer too, I'll try to fill you in on that as well

I was waking up about every hour last night because today I carpooled with a couple of folks on my crew (SLOC REALLY wants us to carpool) and they were coming to pick me up at 4am. I would have felt like a dork if I were the cause of the carpool being late, so I kept waking up. Finally, at 3:30am I just got up, made coffee and ate cereal and waited for Scott to come get me. If yesterday had been more demanding I might of slept better but, hey, I'll TAKE my first day. And hope we have eleven more like it.

I figure I should fill you in on some terms and stuff that can make you look like downhill race experts (Me? I can't tell a Super-G from a G-string... well, maybe I can, but I am clueless when it comes to these race courses). Anyway, there are a few things that I AM familiar with. Netting being one of them. I guess in the early days of racing when you lost control (at 60mph) and disappeared off into the trees, they would just wait until spring to recover the body. A few decades ago, they were using hay bales to bring racers to "gentle" stops (better, I guess, than wooden and stone fences and easier to maintain). The biggest problem was, well, it still hurts like heck when you hit a hay bale at 60mph. So more humane methods were developed. That is where netting comes in. No doubt the first nets were fishing nets but they were heavy and smelled bad so when plastic came along, they used them. These nets catch people, moving at high speed and in the wrong direction.

There are two basic types of netting. A-net is very high. Probably 4 to 6 meters high (the IOC uses antiquated measures like meters...I don't know how long a meter is, but A-net is about 4 to 6 of 'em high). The purpose of A-net is to prevent an out of control skier from becoming a low earth orbit satellite. Downhill races have "jumps" and racers do temporarily lose contact with our carefully prepared, two-mile long "icy driveway". Occasionally, they lose contact permanently and A-net brings them back to earth.

B-net is something I need when I ski. B-net is low, only 2 meters high. Imagine losing control as you glide at 50mph and instead of worrying about how many dozen skiers you'll need to take down before you come to a stop, you instead wonder how many B-nets you'll take out before you come to a stop. We figure that when racers are skiing parallel to a B-net they probably will only be able to take out a single row, maybe two. However, where there are turns in the course and the skier is perpendicular to the fence, a 120 pound body moving at 60 miles an hour could probably do some REAL damage (almost as bad as a snowboarder - but we'll talk about "shredders" later). We put three rows of B-net at corners. In our section, Russi's Lone Pine, we have a turn at the bottom of Shooting Star jump just before racers disappear into Paintbrush Meadow (without using any A-net, we hope). At this turn, we have three B-nets and then a fourth placed just before the conveniently placed emergency evacuation helipad (which also has a fence). There have been crashes at this site before, so today we practiced how to quickly replace B-nets. Actually we were assisted by an unwitting volunteer who didn't quite make the corner and snapped a B-net pole before entangling himself and his skis in the net. That is the great thing about Olympic Volunteers, always ready to help.

But back to today. Cake! We were on the lifts in total darkness, directed by flashlight to Worker City for dispatch and then stood shivering, watching a beautiful Utah morning paint itself slowly into existence. Absolutely spectacular! Made the whole tedious day worth it. Now, I am NOT complaining. I KNOW how bad it can get when the weather turns nasty. But, today was remarkable for its complete lack of exertion. We were done at 8:30am. But, we had a forerunner test race at 10:30am and 1pm so we had to be there to peel folks off of the netting and repair it as necessary. Forerunners are athletes who want to race, but haven't qualified for anything but insanity thus far. They run the course to test it out and see what a great job we are doing. Racers who will be competing in the Olympics can't ski the course until training day (the Men have one tomorrow) so forerunners can check it out and even let racers know the good and bad spots. I think we did good. Nobody "lost it" in our section. We are just about perfect as far as I can see.

The big deal in the ranks was complaints about the food. We get sack lunches and there has been a can a soup in the sack which is really great, if you happen to have a microwave. I guess some malcontents whined to HR about the soup. Where do these people think they are working? We're ON A MOUNTAIN! We're volunteers. Be thankful that we have anything to eat. Give the soup away and eat the sandwich....my guess is that these folks are vegan Californian's that came for "the experience". The rest of us, we just want to have a good time. Which, so far, it has been.

Up at 4:45am tomorrow (get to sleep in!).

Gotta go,

Pete

P.S. If you are looking to lose a few friends, feel free to forward this on to them. "Genuine" Olympic experiences are hard to come by...you might try e-bay though.....