2010 Olympics: Four-Man Bobsleigh

I mentioned in my previous post about the trip I took up to Whistler courtesy of Travel Alberta that I would talk about, at least show photos of, the 4-man Bobsled event I got to see. So that will be pretty much what this post is all about.

Now Keith and I only stayed for Heat 3 as we wanted to get down to the village from the Whistler Sliding Centre before the massive crowd would make their way down after the final heat, but we did enjoy the sledding we saw and the people while we were up there.

Sled # 7: Team Canada went to win the Bronze medal in the final heat. Lyndon Rush, Chris Le Bihan, David Bissett and Lascelles Brown zooming past us at nearly 140 km/hour. Even at 1/2000th of a second, it looks like I wasn’t fast enough to stop the movement.

Sled # 2: Team Germany went to win the Silver medal in the final heat. Andre Lange, Alexander Roediger, Keven Kuske and Martin Putze.

Sled #1: Team USA went to win the Gold medal in the final heat. Steven Holcomb, Steve Mesler, Curtis Tomasevicz and Justin Olsen.

Keith and I did watch the final heat back at the Alberta Hospitality building in which the above sledders placed their respected positions. It was crazy close for both of the Team Canada’s sleds to appear on the podium but at the end, only 1 would gain a medal (Bronze). What an exciting final heat, but the heat we watched (the one before the final) was pretty cool and had the crowd going quite a bit too!

The cool thing about photographing Bobsled (or do you say Bobsleigh?) is that unlike luge or skeleton you can hear the sleds from a much further distance away as they come down the track. This makes it easier to set up for the shot. A great tip when doing something like this is to keep both your eyes open. One eye (preferably the left) looking through the viewfinder and the right eye looking out at the track section ahead of the camera. A bit awkward at first but you do it enough it’s pretty easy, I use it quite a lot actually when I don’t want to miss action around me.

People with little point and shoot cameras were having hit and miss with their photos, but when they got a sled in frame and not fuzzy, they were excited to share it with everyone around them. Even the people shooting it with their camera phones (I saw Blackberries, iPhones, Nokias and more) were able to capture some of the action. I even saw one fellow who was using the latest iPod Nano to capture photos, though I don’t know if he managed to capture a sled. There was one lady (she perhaps had one to many beers) supposedly from InStyle Magazine wanted our photos. For what though? I don’t know. I wonder how she felt the next morning?

The crowd was pretty crazy too, not Hockey Gold Medal (Yay Canada!!) crazy but excited as the sleds whizzed down the tracks.

Come to think of it, while walking around the Whistler Village and around the WSC (Whistler Sliding Centre) I did notice a majority of American Flags people were wearing. Though if you walked around the streets of Vancouver you would definitely notice the Red and White of our colours more.

Poor Brit, completely smashed as he made his way back up the sliding centre to watch the 4th and final heat. I wonder how many he has had since before that double-fisting action.

So many people were dressed up, especially in some sort of Bobsled/Bobsleigh configuration. Everyone had smiles, everyone was taking photos with everyone else, it was a truly energetic place to be.

Now if w can only get up to the Paralympic events happening around the Lower Mainland in March, though I have heard a lot of the events are sold out.