Year 1, Chapter 5- Whistler While You Work
"Greenland is Ice, but Iceland is Nice"
-D2: The Mighty Ducks
We were on the ground and out of the office once again. Today, it was the first weekend in November, and Katja and I were in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. In 2010 it had been the site of the Winter Games, but today it was hosting an event in the North American Cup, the smaller of Bobsleigh's two minor circuits. Many people mingled around the track, including near the starting gate, which was where we currently were stationed as part of the first ever Icelandic delegation at a women's Bobsleigh event. It was exciting, but I kept reminding myself to temper the enthusiasm with some reality. I thought back to the conversation I had had with Gunther Schuller, our German coach, earlier in the week.
"Okay, so 17 competitors signed up....what are we realistically hoping for?" I had probed, wanting to know if this crazy endeavor had any hope of working.
"First off...." he said, speaking in English for my benefit with a slightly halted German accent.
"Ignore what happens with the American and Canadian teams. They will...what is the expression you Americans use....wipe the floor with us."
"Lovely" I muttered.
"The best European countries send their developmental sleds to the European Cup, and we are not going to be able to compete with them right off the bat, so the hope is that we will stand up better with the North American Cup, which have some really strong American and Canadian teams, and then everyone else in the world who is hoping to eventually break into the World Cup."
He paused.
"I told the girls that we should be happy if we beat somebody."
"And will we?" I asked hopefully.
He paused again.
"We'll see."
So now it was time to start, and time to see what the actual reality would bear out.
******
A short while later, it was time. We were 12th to start, and it was pretty clear that nobody outside of North America had a realistic chance of a medal. We were focusing on the Irish squad, which had come down the track in the slowest time thus far (57.088), as well as the Chilean squad, which had yet to run.
I could see Katla and Emilia in the starting gate. They were still, though it was impossible to tell if that meant they were nervous or relaxed, given that their faces were hidden beneath a helmet. Their hands hovered over the pushbar, then I heard Katla bark out the start cadence.
EINN....TVEIR.....ŪRIR........FARA!
They pushed and sprinted down the chute, and hopped into the sled with what I thought was a surprising ease. I had a chance to sneak a peak at Coach Gunther's face, and his expression seemed proud. So that had been a good start! Unfortunately, his expression wouldn't hold their long. They made a pretty clear mistake, obvious enough that I even I could tell, in Turn 1, going high up into the turn before overcorrecting and skidding too far to the other side of the lane and bumping the wall. That would slow down a lot of speed, unfortunately, and it was evident even from the video boards that Emilia and Katla were not generating the kind of speed that most sleds had. A few more mistakes occurred as they continued down the track, but the damage had been done early. They crossed the line just a short minute later in 57.130, putting us into a last place 12th.
5 more sleds came down over the next few minutes, and each was faster than that, including the aforementioned Chilean sled. So, unfortunately, it looked like 17th (last) place was where things were going to stand after the first run. One more run to go, though, so we had to hope for some improvement.
******
An hour later, and we were back in the gate. This time, we were going first, because we were currently sitting in 17th place. Once more, Katla barked out the countdown, and once more the start looked solid. The first curve, thankfully, went a little bit better. Still too high, but no overcorrection. Turn 3 looked similar, but Turns 4 and 5 seemed good. Turn 6 was once again a bit high, and it was becoming clear that small mistakes were starting to add up. By the time the ladies got to the bottom, they had lost a lot of potential time....but it turns out, NOT as much as Run #1. At 57.096, they had improved, and that was a step in the right direction!
I chatted with Katja, and we were both pleased at the improvement. We were so caught up in conversation that we almost missed a huge development. Ireland had scuffed up the first turn pretty badly! They banged into the wall and struggled to right themselves before continuing down the track. Immediately, our eyes shot to the scoreboard. There was time check coming up. It was.....green. That meant they were ahead, but they still didn't appear to be gaining much speed. Our eyes glued to the screen, we waited for the next time check....still green. But they were dropping time! We watched each of the next two time checks, as Ireland kept coming back towards our sled, even though they were still in the lead. The finish line was approaching. We waited with baited breath.
Red!
We had done it, and beaten a team! Ireland had crossed the line 17 hundredths of a second behind Iceland! I threw my arms in the air and hugged Katja, and Gunther pumped his fist. On the video screen, we saw Katja and Emilia in the leaders' chairs, hugging each other in celebration!
******
It was a small triumph, obviously. Kajta and Emilia still finished 16th out of 17 teams on the day. But they had indeed beaten someone in their first bobsleigh competition, and that was something to celebrate. There were still two more competitions to be had in Whistler that weekend, but for this Friday night, Iceland was celebrating its' first small victory!
[END Year 1, Chapter 5]
As always, remember that you can help improve Iceland's fortunes! With any comments you make on this post, you get Dynasty Points that you can spend at a later date to increase Iceland's budget. I update this thread once each week! Next week...back in the office for November results to come trickling in! (Also, have not had any time to squash the aforementioned bugs...that's still an ongoing problem