Goodbye Vancouver!

With a night picture of the Richmond Olympic Oval we say thank you for a great week and goodbye to Richmond and Vancouver. Now we are heading home to watch the rest of the Games on TV.

Unexpected winner and Norwegian bronze

Our stay in Vancouver finished in the best possible way - a surprise Dutch winner of the 1500 m after a strong race by Mark Tuitert, and a very hoped for and deserved bronze medal for Håvard Bøkko!

Richmond Olympic Oval

The speed skating oval is a nice piece of architecture - only a pity they wrapped it in Olympic fences, so you don't actually get to see it clearly when you are up close to the venue.

Inside the venue there is a nice view from all seats around the rink, and the lighting inside the oval is very good, which makes it perfect for making nice photos of the skaters.

Today is our last day at the oval. Tomorrow we are going back home ...

Finally - a live Norwegian gold!

In the last 3 Olympic Games I have had som great Olympic experiences, but I haven't seen a Norwegian win an Olympic gold medal live since Lillehammer 1994. That was until yesterday... I had a good feeling going up to the mountains yesterday morning - the weather was nice and the Norwegian ladies seemed to be in good shape. Both Marit Bjørgen and Kristin Størmer Steira should be able to compete for the a medal, maybe even the gold medal.

When we arrived in Whistler Olympic Park the weather was as nice as you can only imagine, and the surrounding were beautiful. All set for a great day. And what a day! Marit Bjørgen seemed strong from the start, and I finally got to see a love Norwegian Olympic gold winner again!

Sea-to-Sky Highway

The Highway from Vancouver to Whistler Mountain is called Sea-to-Sky Highway, and it on the top 10 list of things to see when you visit Vancouver. Well, today was our chance, because we had tickets for cross-country skiing, so we had to get up early to take the bus to Whistler Olympic Park. And we finally got to see some snow at the Winter Olympics ...

The Olympic Flame

There has been much discussions about the Olympic flame, which was placed behind a fence, so ordinary people, walking along the Vancouver waterfront, could not see it and take pictures of it. Well, they had to change that, so they made some openings in a fence, and opened a public area on the roof of a nearby building. So now people line up to come up to the roof and take pictures. The location seems quite clearly a little odd, between the large building along the waterfront, but not at least it is possible to take some nice photos of the flame, even closeups:

Shani Davis

Shani Davis was the big favorite to win yesterdays 1000 m, as well as the 1500 m in a couple of days. And he did not let his fans down. The 500 m champion, Korean Mo Tae-Bum, set the time to beat at 1.09.12, but Davis beat him by 0.18 seconds, becoming the first to defend his Olympic 1000 m title, and the first since Johann Olav Koss to win an Olympic speed skating title in two games in a row. Chad Hedrick joined his compatriot Davis on the podium, by winning the bronze medal. what a day for the Americans - gold in 3 different events at the same time - Ladies' Downhill, Men's halfpipe and Men's 1000 m.

New Zamboni

To prevent further ice machine problems a real Zamboni has been flown in from Calgary, but as you all can see - there is no Olympic decoration on this one ...

Curling

Tuesday was curling day for us. We saw one curling session in Torino 4 years ago. Then only a few hundred spectators attended the session. In Canada curling is almost as hot as ice-hockey, so the curling venue was packed with Canadian fans cheering for Kevin Marin and his team, one of the big favorites to bring home a gold medal for the host country. And they were making a lot of noise!

Germany gave Canada a hard time for a while, but in the end Canada proved to be the strongest team, and Germany congratulated Canada with the victory after the 9th end. After this the Canadian crowd started cheering for the Norwegian team, playing against USA. "Let's go Norway, let's go" from the Canadians (and the few Norwegians in the stands) seemed to help, because Norway won the 10th end, making it a tie, and in the 11th end they gave the Americans a hard time and stole a point to win the match.

Norwegian skip Thomas Ulsrud shouting "HARD!"



The Norwegian team, in their clown suits, discussing the tactics for the last stones.

Broken Zambonis

On the 500 m the ice refurbishing machines caused a two hour delay because they both had problems. Even the backup machine had problems. And these were brand new!

The ice-refurbishing machines are refered to as zambonis, after the main manufacturer of these machines. And after the event people said "the Zambonis were broken ...". Only these were not really Zambonis. Because General Motors is a proud sponsor of the Olympic Games, they got to make the equipment used for the Olympics. Everywhere else they use real Zambonis ...


The Japanese coach checking the ice quality after the final ice-preparation before the 500 m could go on after a two hour break.

Surprise Olympic champion on the 500 meter

Olympic champion Mo Tae-Bum

Silver medalist Keiichiro Nagashima.

Bronze medalist Joji Kato

The Koreans seems to be in great shape for these Olympics, so I guessed one of the Lee's of Korea would win the 500 m. Lee Kyou-Hyuk did not seem to be in shape at all, and when former world record holder Lee Kang-Seok also failed to be on the podium, it was quite a surprise to see Mo Tae-Bum make two consistently good races and win the gold with a clear margin to the japanese skaters in second and third place. For the first time in Olympic history we had an all Asian podium in speed skating.

Chinese New Year

When you are walking around Richmond it seems like at least every second person you meet is chinese, or at least asian - except for the occasional orange-dressed Dutch speed skating fan of course. No wonder, Richmond has a chinese population of 44% and an asian population of about 60%. This weekend they celebrated Chinese New Year. To take part in the Chinese New Year celebration we had dinner in Chinatown in Vancouver. On our way back home we stopped by the O-Zone i Richmond, an Olympic recreational area in a park in the centre of Richmond, where there was a big Chinese New Year celebration - one of the biggest outside of China. We got to watch traditional lion dance and martial arts performance before spectacular fireworks were set off to celebrate the beginning of the Year of the Tiger.

Czech favorite gold

No surprise in the womens 3000 m yesterdy. Jeroens prediction was: Sablikova, Beckert and one of the canadians. The canadian proved to be Norwegian descendant Kristina Groves, so at least half a Norwegian medal :-)

Sablikova cheering for her gold medal:


Silver medalist, Stephanie Beckert of Germany:


Bronze medalist, Kristina Groves of Canada:

King Sven

Since the last Olympics, Sven Kramer has been the unrivaled speed skating king. He is 3 times world Allround Champion, 4 times European Champion, holds the world record on the 2 longest distance, and yesterday he won his first Olympic gold medal.

He sat the pace himself, by being the first skater out among the favorites. It was clearly a good race, and he finished in a new Olympic Record, but he was also clearly not happy after he finished. He finished 4-5 seconds slower than we had expected, but it still seemed like quite a good race. Could someone actually beat him? The outsideres were never even close, and the big surprise was silver medalist, the Korean Seung-Hoon Lee, who switched from short-track before this season.


Sven Kramer - energetically starting his race.


After he has won - climbing into the stands to celebrate with his father.


.. then climbing back onto the ice (some of us secretely hoped he would strech some muscles while climbing ...) ...


... and then thanking the audience.

Arrived in Vancouver

After an uneventful flight we arrived in Vancouver about 18:30 last night. There were several big TV-screens at the airport, so after picking up our luggage we could watch Norway and Netherlands walking into the arena at the opening ceremony, before finding a taxi. We got checked into our apartment just in time to see the official opening and the lighting of the olympic flame.

We are staying in Richmond, which seems like a nice and quiet suburbean area. Getting to the Olympic Oval, where the speed skating events take place, takes us about half an hour. We are staying at a studio apartment, and we have a wifi internet connection. Everything is just perfect. Our host family is chinese, which is appropriate in many ways :-) Vancouver has a very large chinese minority, and we plan to go to the local chinatown to see the chinese new years celebrations one of the evenings.

Our Olympic schedule

This is our schedule for our week in Vancouver:

13.2. Speed skating, Men's 5000 m
14.2. Speed skating, Ladies' 3000 m
15.2. Speed skating, Men's 500 m
16.2. Curling, Norway-USA
17.2. Speed skating, Men's 1000 m
18.2. Ice hockey, Norway-USA
19.2. Cross-country skiing, Ladies' 15 km Pursuit
20.2. Speed skating, Men's 1500 m

As we have speed skating ticket most of the days, we are staying in Richmond, not too far from Richmond Olympic Oval. I cross my fingers for Håvard Bøkko (picture taken at Hamar in 2008) and the rest of the Norwegian team.

Welcome to my Vancouver 2010 blog

I am leaving for Vancouver for the Winter Olympics in one week, together with my Dutch friend Jeroen Heijmans. To share some pictures and moments, I hope to be able to do some blogging from Vancouver, like I did from Torino 2006 and Beijing 2008 (Norwegian only).

In the meantime I will share some other Olympic memories, and may be some speed skating memories.

For my english-speaking friends on the skatelist, and the family of Jeroen, this blog will be in English :-)

So check back from time to time. And don't hesitate to write comments. They are always welcome.

Have a nice Olympic Experience!

Regards, Bjarte