Freestyle Moguls and Snowboard Cross

On Sunday, we had tickets for Men's Freestyle Moguls. This is the men's version of the same event won by American Hannah Kearney on Saturday night. We had to get to Capilano University to get an Olympic Bus System Bus to the venue: Cypress Mountain Ski Area, about 30 min. north of Vancouver. We were able to drive to the U, and park for free. But it was over a half-mile walk up hill to the bus circle. Then we got on the bus (had to buy a special bus ticket for each event) and rode up the mountain. The bus let us off and we walked another half-mile up to the security tents. The venue grandstands were about a 10 min. walk beyond that. This reinforces my earlier observation that spectators have to be pretty fit to make it to their seats.
Street performers lightened the mood at the Cypress Mountain venue.

We also passed by a huge crane helicopter close to the ski area. If you read about how the Olympic organizers have had to truck in and fly in snow to create the venues, this is one of the vehicles that can carry a 10-ton load each trip. We heard that 300 truck loads of snow were brought in from as far as three hours away.

A bouncing ball kept the crowd entertained during the break between qualifying and finals events

The Cypress Mountain venue has 2 major areas for events: moguls and aerials on one side, and snowboard cross and halfpipe on the other side. Sunday we were on the moguls side. Each competitor got a qualifying run and the top 20 got into the finals. These photos are dark, but the sun was actually out for much of the day. We came prepared for rain with umbrellas and ponchos, as well as wearing our ski clothes and heavy boots. Luckily, we didn't have rain.
Doing a back flip after the main mogul run.

There were extremely long lines for food and washrooms, so that was a bummer. We bought as much food as we thought we'd need for the 8 hours we would be there. I made one bottle of water last all day....
It was dark when the last run took place and the Canadian, Alexandre Bilobeau, got the gold medal, the first gold medal for a Canadian on home soil. This was an important milestone for Canadians, as this is the third Olympics Canada has hosted and they'd not won a gold medal
"at home" to this point.

We hoofed it to the bus line to avoid the long waits for buses back down the mountain. We stopped for take-out Chinese food on the way back to the condo and again watched fireworks from our windows as we enjoyed dinner.

Monday saw DH and I go back to Capilano U. to take the bus back to Cypress Mountain for the Snowboard Cross event. Paul and Jen decided to sell their tickets as Jen needed to be in touch with her office for the morning. We repeated yesterday's trek and bus and trek to the venue on the other side of Cypress Mountain.

This venue had the added bonus of 200 + steps up from ground level to the grandstands. It's hard to see in the photo, but that nice wall with the Olympic design is the back of the stands, and there is a staircase going up and up and up.
The snowboard cross has snowboarders going down a course that has jumps and tight turns. In the finals, 4 boarders go at once, racing each other to the finish. It is exciting to watch. Unfortunately, each boarder gets 2 qualifying runs on the course single, and there were 35 boarders in the competition. The first qualifying run took over an hour. And that isn't so exciting to watch, after you see the first 20 or so.....

As this is our last day, we decided to leave before the finals so we could do more shopping and sightseeing in town. So we didn't get to see American Seth Westcott win, although we did see his qualifying run.

We took the bus back to North Vancouver and got on the Seabus across the bay to downtown Vancouver. We shopped again at The Bay (official Olympic Superstore headquarters), although the line to get in was long. We walked to the waterfront to see the Olympic torch. This is PW's photo. You will see an empty plaza around the torch. There is a 8 ft. high chain link fence around the plaza, some say due to fears of vandalism. (There was some vandalism to downtown stores on Saturday by masked "protesters".) I don't know the real reason, but it is too bad that people can't enjoy the sight/site freely.

Each day the pedestrian plazas are more crowded and there are long lines to enter the pavilions set up by corporations and different countries. It seems that the city is embracing the spirit of the games!