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EZaccess: Hello from Greece! Best wishes for the coming weekend! Come by and say a HI, whenever you can! Many and sweet kisses from me to you!!
Sujay: interesting quiz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6IRi5rDmmc
Gail Anderson: Your enthusiasm is infectious! I've thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the blogs and appreciate the infor on contests and ways to get corporate sponsor pins! Keep up the AWESOME work!
Ed Dickson: Molson House sounds terrific but at $500 a person for passes I'll have to take a pass
Sharon Sirkis: I'm from Silver Spring, Maryland - USA and LOVE reading your blog. I'm 52 and will be 53 during the olympics! I always feel so special as the winter olympics are always at my birthday time! I wish I could purchase clothing but we in the USA can't purchase what we want from the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Store -- that is a true bummer!Thanks for keeping us all so informed. It's wonderful and a great escape from the crazy daily grind.
Kerri: Hi, Congrats on winning JotW. You are a very enthusiatic person for your subject :) and it makes your journal interesting to read! If you come by my site comment on the post, a Canadian view would be interesting.
Shawn: I hope everyone that attended the Olympian pin show in Richmond had a great time
tom hill: Hi there. I've sent you a couple of emails about pin swapping with no response - wondering they might be going to your spam folder by mistake? Hope to hear from you
lucid: visiting your blog, staying for a while :)

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Saturday, September 26th 2009

8:07 PM

Skelton - WOW!!!

By 2010 Vanfan

Skeleton

I  realise that I don’t talk about the sports or athletes of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games nearly enough, so I am going to start trying to include them in posts more often, instead of what I have been doing, which is holding out for a day when I can talk about just the sport or the athlete.  There is too much going on now for that to work well enough to appeal to me.  So today I’m going to talk about Skeleton, mostly because it scares me silly but also because there are only two races (1 men’s and 1 women’s) so it’s fairly quick to talk about tonight.

Skeleton is derived from tobogganing in a track and involves sliding down a track head-first.  Many of the original tracks are in Switzerland and were built between towns, for example the Cresta Run between St. Moritz and Celerina; a 3/4 of a mile track with 10 turns that is still used today and hosted Skeleton Olympic competition in 1928 and 1948.  Skeleton was added permanently to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake 2002.  The sport gets its name from the sled that is used which, originally of metal, resembled a human skeleton.  The sleds today are built of fibreglass and metal.

Part of the Cresta Run - St. Moritz

Part of the Cresta Run - St. Moritz

Athletes must be good sprinters to get the best start, but with a sport that is measured electronically to 0.01 seconds, they must also find the best line through the track and steer smoothly while travelling face-first, downhill at speeds up to nearly 150 km/hour at the Whistler Sliding Centre (the same track as bobsleigh and luge).  There will be 4 heats for both men and women and each competitor will slide twice with the winner having the lowest combined time for both slides!

I am not sure if our Skeleton team for Vancouver 2010 has been officially announced yet (let me know if you know what’s up), but I do know that we have some athletes to watch!  For the guys – Jeff Pain got Silver at Torino in 2006!! (Duff Gibson won Gold but retired after the Olympics).  For the women,  Mellisa Hollingsworth who got Bronze in Torino in 2006 as well.  I think both Jeff and Mellisa will be trying for the Vancouver 2010 Games as well as several other athletes!  Anyhow, click the links to learn more about the Jeff and Mellisa or if you are an Olympic hopeful or athlete in Skeleton and would be willing to do an interview, drop me a line (2010vanfan@gmail.com).  I’d love to learn more about your sport and I’m sure everyone else would too!

Mellisa Hollingsworth Torino 2006

Mellisa Hollingsworth Torino 2006

Jeff Pain

Jeff Pain

Thank you! Merci!

 

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Saturday, September 26th 2009

8:06 PM

.139 days to go – Red Mittens

by 2010vanfan

Vancouver 2010 Red Mittens - Your way to show our athletes your support!

Vancouver 2010 Red Mittens - Your way to show our athletes your support!

I cannot wait to get these!!  But even though I work at the Olympic Superstore I too have to wait like everyone else for October 1st to get my mitts on these Mittens!  The Red Mittens will be worn by all of the Olympic Torchbearers (all 12,000 of them!).  The Mittens will also be worn by Canadians cheering on the Torchbearers, the athletes and generally just to show our heart and spirit!  The knit Red Mittens have Vancouver 2010 and the Olympic Rings on the backs of the hands and a white maple leaf on each palm.  We will all be able to raise our hands together to show our support!

You can get your Mittens (starting October 1st) at the Olympic Superstore or other Olympic Stores (like at YVR), at Vancouver2010.com, or at other Bay, Zellers, or Home Outfitters Stores across Canada!  All of the Celebration Communities along the Olympic Torch Relay route are also supposed to have them available to purchase!  So get out there and get yours!  The net proceeds from the sale of these Mittens go towards the Own the Podium 2010 program so besides cheering on our athletes, they also help to support them in their training to reach the podium!

According to the press release CTV will be doing a lot on September 30th to show the Mittens including kicking off “National Red Mittens Day”.  Now, I’m not entirely clear if the day is September 30th (that doesn’t make much sense to me, since most people cannot get Mittens yet) or if National Red Mitten Day is October 1st (at least we can buy them then).  But it sounds like on the 30th several CTV personalities (Tamara Taggart?  Pamela Martin?  Bill Good? and others??) will be wearing them throughout the day.  There is also going to be a 30-second ‘promotional spot’ on the Red Mittens which I will post a link to once it is on air!

Anyhow, Red Mittens are going to be big, and I can say they really are something special (yes I’ve seen them even though I can’t have any of my own yet) and I am really, really, really looking forward to wearing them and cheering on Canada!!!

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The Mascots were up at Whistler today, and I have to post this picture because it is sooo cute!

The Mascots with Whistler's Inukshuk.

The Mascots with Whistler's Inukshuk.

I have not yet been able to confirm if the Mascots are coming to the Olympic Superstore Grand Opening on Thursday at noon or at a later date.  However, I’m going to go with their website for now and say that it is likely that they’ll be at the Superstore and I’m super excited about it!!

Oh!  And I’m not sure that my post last night really emphasized the excitement for the Canadian Olympic Committee on October 1st… the Olympic Superstore Grand Opening is also the reveal of the uniforms that our Olympic athletes will be wearing throughout the Games (except for the Ceremony and Podium outfits which will be revealed later).  As I understand it, members of Team Canada (athletes, coaches, etc) will be provided with their uniforms by HBC.  At Torino 2006 this was a 45-piece kit that included luggage.  As far as I’ve heard the Vancouver 2010 package is around a 65-piece kit also including luggage!!  And starting October 1st you can get your replica Team Canada apparel from the Olympic Superstore!!  (Come visit me, I’ll be working in the Canadian Olympic Committee area!! So happy!!).  And no, I have no pictures to show you of any of it as it is all TOP SECRET!!  We’re working hard to maintain the surprise of the new uniforms.  But I will say that I think that they’ll be a hit!!  I love the pieces I’ve seen so far!!

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