Biathlon Venue Treated wtih "Snow Cement"
By Steffen Hoos, Toko Race Service Manager

Februray 16, 2010 - The changeable weather stayed constant today. Once the weather gods saw off the men's downhill yesterday, it snowed half the night until about 10 clock this morning. Flakes the size of coins!

The men's combined was postponed until tomorrow. The weather forecasters say that starting tomorrow there will be a period of sunshine. So tomorrow is looking good for alpine ski racing fans.

The control at the security checkpoints to the venues are necessary, but I am happy to say that things are much quicker now. This is particularly important for us to be able to supply the team with products - especially those that live outside of the village center. Today we were up at 5:30 am and needed 45 minutes to drive to the Nordic venue. To get to the alpine venue, we only need 10 minutes because we are staying directly at the Whistler Creek site.

Despite the many Olympic visitors from around the world, there is fortunately no real traffic problem. All of the race organizers and helpers whose cars are not officially accredited are transported by a well-functioning shuttle bus system to the competition courses. We are allowed to drive up to just before the village due to our credentials and need to support the teams.

The test sections in the biathlon venue had an unscheduled and long closing this morning which made our work difficult. Normally we test and provide the teams with a wax tip two hours before the start. This morning, though, though the course workers were treating the biathlon course as well as the cross country course with the "snow cement" as it is called in German. This dries out the snow and makes it hard.

The wet new-fallen snow from last night and this morning was really slow. After time it glazed up and became moist despite the snow treatment. Generally speaking, the surface was much harder than in the past days and the snow changed from partially transformed snow to wet new snow. For the technicians, this meant new skis and new grinds to test. The wax selection process turned out to be easy as the same waxes were still running very well. You gotta love it!