22 Feb 2010
Vancouver airport is bustling with people arriving for the Olympics. My coach Pat and I are met by the amazing support staff at Team GB and we are quickly transported to the British quarters of the Athlete Village in downtown Vancouver. The city is just alive with Olympic fever. When we arrive it’s clear that they have thought of everything to make this as uplifting an environment as it can be  - even down to the detail of the huge white sofas which has been ‘blinged up’ with massive union jack cushions!

Security is tight; you cannot get into the Village or go anywhere ‘official’ without Olympic Accreditation documents, there are frequent checks so we wear these at all times. The mountain is completely shut off to anyone without their Olympic credentials and these are restricted to all but a handful of select coaches and people from the media who are busy building platforms, running wires, doing last minute testing of systems. For the moment Cypress Mountain is a completely desolate private training hill.

The public area is like a seaside town in the winter… the only thing missing are the 12,000 people who have bought tickets and are due to fill up this official Olympic sites food areas, form lines outside the porta-loos, the souvenir tents, and fill the vast empty seating on the grandstand.  We are told that the Olympics moguls event was the first event to have completely sold out and you cannot get spare tickets for love nor money. I will be the first Team GB athlete to perform the very next day after the Opening Ceremony, in the meantime it’s just great to get onto the Olympic course and get skiing again.

There is an arrangement during the training schedule for ‘friends and family’ to watch. Because official accreditation documents are so hard to come by, nearly all athletes have private coaches who are relying on getting onto the hill to support their athletes on these days. My second coach Timmy Meagher (who took Travis Meyer to Silver Medal in the 2002 Games) is one of the many coaches eagerly waiting in the sidelines.

We are ferried on a motorcade of coaches between the Village and the Freestyle Olympic venue at Cypress Mountain. There are no stops and the only time the doors open again is when we arrive at our final destination having gone through a screening security tent and a series of checkpoints. 

On the first day of training there is a huge security alert. A man wanting to watch the women’s moguls action has somehow managed to bypass all the security checks, walk through the woods and is spotted by an armed policeman. Rumours have it that he was in the sights of a sniper and was lucky not to have been shot. The consequence of this is that there is a complete shutdown of all friends and family passes for all events at Cypress Mountain. This is pretty devastating for all athletes and their entourage who have travelled so far, but we have little choice other than to accept this and stay positive.

The first couple of days of training are excellent and the widely reported warm temperatures and lack of snow prove to not even be an issue thanks to the incredible work of the organisers. The course is running well on hard packed firm snow enabling me to really attack the hill and cut with my edges. I am skiing at my absolute best.

At the Opening Ceremony, Team GB is assembled and we all walk out into a stadium filled to the brim with over 60,000 spectators. The roar of the crowd is like no other noise I have ever heard and I feel so proud and privileged to be British and representing my country at the Olympics with over 3 billion worldwide viewers tuned in to their TV sets at this very moment in time.

Leaving the Ceremony all I can think about is that it is now raining hard, really hard. My thoughts instantly turn to what is likely to be happening to the course. Cypress Mountain is low and the rain cannot possibly be falling as snow on the hill. This means that if the temperature stays as warm as it is now, the course will be slushy and heavy, if the temperature drops then the bumps will be hard and icy. One thing that is certain is that the course will be totally different to the way it has been over the previous days of training. I think of the adjustments that I will make to my skiing. Although the Opening Ceremony was spectacular I completely drift off into visualisations of the training run and thinking about how strong my skiing has been and the fact that it’s the first day of the Olympics and my competition day tomorrow.

It is still raining heavily the next day and as we arrive at the mountain there are chilling high winds and dense Pacific fog blowing across the course. The previous day there was the tragic news of Nodar Kumaritashvili who died in training on the luge course. Today the Men’s downhill training has been cancelled due to the rain and on the bus all the moguls competitors are talking about is whether the moguls competition will run and whether it’s safe. When we decamp from the bus we can see the spectators starting to arrive with a sea of umbrellas and glistening rain drenched transparent ponchos. This is not nice skiing or spectating weather but it looks like the show is going to go ahead.

We have just three top to bottom runs to get used to the most hostile conditions ever experienced, before training is closed. Things are completely different to the previous days, there is nothing familiar about this course, the firm snow of the past couple of days has transformed into heavy granular grippy slush, and the bumps are getting rutted and steep sided. The landings are steaming away where they have added liquid nitrogen to try to solidify the mush and it makes for an ‘interesting’ ingredient to adjust the balance to then ski into the soft course. On the first training run I went ‘big’ on my bottom air back flip and landed completely outside  the  treated dry iced area. There is no room for errors in the unforgiving slush and I am grateful that I landed squarely and solidly centred on my feet.

Goggles just don’t deal with rain droplets forming on the lenses and the rain was the biggest issue. Skiing on the course was like driving as fast as you can down a motorway in a storm but without windshield wipers. The strong gusts of wind on the top section kept blowing in patches of fog or suddenly blasting from nowhere and making a smooth flight in the air unpredictable.
Training runs are done… it’s now time! Before I know it the race has started and I am counting down until it’s my turn. I am composed and relaxed. I never knew how I would deal with the spectacle of being in the Olympics and skiing in front a huge thronging crowd, but in the start gate I am just incredibly calm and focussed, there is nothing but me and this wild hill that needs taming.

Coming into the first air I catch a ‘crab’ in the slush which just pulls my entry into the 360 off centre, I manage to land the trick but I know that the judges will have deducted points on the landing. I flow on dancing through the bumps and have the most incredible run through the technical section then into my backflip at the bottom. It is only at the end of my run that I hear the loud music, the announcer and the crowd cheering! For me, my run up until that point has been muted in the complete focus of my performance.

My result is up and I am in with a shot to be one of the 20 skiers who progress to the Olympic Final, but by the time the last of the remaining competitors have come down, I finish in 24th place. There have been so many positives that I have taken away and I know that looking at my scores afterwards, the ‘bobble’ at the top air was the only thing that cost me a place in the final. I can’t be unhappy though, Vancouver was all about dealing with really hostile weather conditions on an unpredictable ever-changing course in front of the world’s audience, and I skied really well given the experience of the field of competitors.

After a run lasting just 31.90 seconds, I have emerged from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics a different person and a different skier. I am so privileged to have been a part of Team GB; their support was just incredible! Pat, Timmy and I have already mapped out the programme for Sochi 2014 with the firm goal of being on the Olympic podium in 4 years time. Staying in the Village as an Olympic Tourist now, I am taking in all the other incredible competitions on offer but from the perspective and understanding of a fellow Olympic competitor rather than just a spectator!


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