PARALYMPICS: DOWNHILL RACE POSTPONED DUE TO LACK OF VISIBILITY
Men’s standing category completes opening training runWHISTLER, BC (March 13, 2010) – What was expected to be the opening alpine medal event of the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games in Whistler, BC turned into another delay as the race jury decided to postpone today’s downhill after poor visibility lead to two in a half hours of pushing the start time back.
The men’s standing category, which had not yet held it’s opening training run, did manage to complete their opening training. The other categories men’s/ladies sitting, men’s/ladies visually impaired and ladies standing all completed the mandatory training run on Wednesday.
Marty Mayberry from Australia clocked in the fastest time of the downhill training run this morning. As for the Canadians, Matt Hallat (Squamish, BC) finished in 11th place. Jeff Dickson (Sudbury, ON) and youngster Kirk Shornstein (Edmonton, AB) finished in 22nd and 30th respectively. Morgan Perrin (Whistler, BC) was not able to finish the training run.
Around 6000 thousand excited fans were ready to cheer on the Paralympic athletes for today’s downhill including Josh Dueck (Vernon, BC) and Sam Danniels (Whistler, BC) “fan clubs” who kept things interesting by chanting the athlete’s names through the delays.
Canadian ski racers including Dueck, the 2009 world downhill champion in the men’s sitting category, are taking the delays in stride.
“Actually, I’m okay with it. I had trouble sleeping the first couple of days but now I feel better and less stressed. It might be a little hippie of me to say this, but with the journal that I write and my sessions with the team’s sport psychologist, they have helped me channel all the energy from the crowd and the fans. The key is actually to stay grounded I think,” said Dueck.
Race volunteers, known lovingly in Whistler as “Weasel Workers”, will be back at it in some cases starting at 2 a.m. PT in order to make a world class downhill event. Several were up that early this morning as volunteers dealt with major snowfall in Whistler the night before.
“The volunteers are working so hard to make the track as good as possible so the athletes can rip down it. That makes me want to race even more. It’s pretty amazing,” said Dueck.
The Race Organizing Committee has decided the men and ladies visually impaired and sitting category categories will run slalom tomorrow. It will be the opening medal event of the 2010 Paralympic Games.
INFORMATION:
Sophie Pilon
C : 604-345-0303
