Winter Olympics in Summer

Olympic flags at the outdoor Whistler Awards Plaza, August 2009.

Here I am in front of the then-unfinished Awards Plaza. The flag poles were already in place, as you can see. This is where the athletes who win in Whistler will stand on the podiums to receive their medals. Look for it on TV--I know I will.


This play structure, in Whistler Village, is made of beautiful logs.

Sledding track, near the bottom, where the athletes finish their runs. The cover to the right is, I think, where they actually exit--at least, that's what it seemed from the description provided by the Australian construction worker pictured below.

This is the lower part of the sledding track in Whistler.


This is an Australian guy who was putting finishing touches on the sliding center at Whistler.

During our summer vacation to Canada with my sister and brother-in-law, I took lots of photos of the sliding center, as that was under construction just on the edge of Whistler Village, where we stayed. The photo of the construction worker, above, was taken in the area where the sledders end their run, where all the media are gathered. They actually start their runs way up the hill, out of sight from where we were allowed to stand.

My love for the Olympics started in grade school, possibly because my brother was an avid watcher. He especially liked the bobsledding events when we were kids. I hope he enjoys these photos! My love of the Olympics was also fueled by shaking hands with Innsbruck Olympics gold medalist Dorothy Hamill at the end of an Ice Capades performance in Seattle just a year after her glorious win. A few years later, I visited the ski jump in Innsbruck (during the summer) where there were commemorative plaques of all the medalists from the 1976 Olympics. As a young adult, my new boyfriend and I went to watch the Olympic torch being run through Los Angeles just before the start of the summer games there. A couple of years later, still together, we went to Vancouver to the World Exposition. And this past summer, as we neared our 20th wedding anniversary, we went up to the Vancouver area again for another Olympics-centered event. Our kids seem to enjoy the Olympics as much as we do.