One of the events we were able to check out while we were up at Creekside, was the 2010 VIESSMANN FIBT World Cup Bobsleigh and Skeleton event at the Whistler Sliding Centre. Unfortunately, we were unable to check out the Skeleton portion of the event where Olympian Jon Montgomery won another gold, but John did take some good photos of it! Since Saturday was the only day we had available to check out the World Cup it was the 4-man bobsleigh event, either way I wanted to go up and check it out!
After our day up at Whistler in the awesome snow, I had Robyn drop me off at the sliding centre. I signed in at the media trailer, got my armbands and headed for the start line. I never did make it to the start-line during the 2010 Winter Olympics, but this time I was able to catch a ride on the shuttle up to the top. I did miss the 1st heat, but got to watch and take photos of the 2nd heat.
When I got up to the top and checked out the start-line, I had no idea where I was going to stand. I just wandered around and found a couple other photogs set up along the track. One of them was Dan Carr, local Whistler Sports Photographer of who’s work I am total envious of! It was great to finally meet Dan in his element. Yes, I am jealous of his gear too, he was shooting with his Canon EOS 1DMarkIV and a 300mm f2.8L lens. I wonder if he’ll take me under his photog-wing one day!
On to the Photos!
I was a bit hesitant to take photos of the event. The light was pretty bleak and without my Canon EOS 7D, I just didn’t think I could really pull off much in the way of decent photos. Though I pushed my XSi to ISO 1600 and tried to keep my shutter speed up on my 70-200mm f2.8L IS. They aren’t bad, and with a little bit of Adobe Lightroom tweaking (in the noise-reduction area) I got away with the following:
It is interesting to see four, fully grown men trying to jump to metal box on skates on a sheet of ice. Though from what I saw, none of them had poor starts, so I suppose that’s a good thing. I do think it would have been cool to see the Skeleton event too. Sliding stomach-down, head first down an ice track sounds like more fun!
Due to my positioning on a small platform, it was a bit tricky to get some of the silly advertising boards out of the way of my photo with out being screamed at for leaning over the track too much. I should have chatted up the track supervisor more and sat on the metal bridge above the first turn, I’m sure that would have made for some cool looking photos.
I tried to get the crowd in the shots too, but as the 2nd heat went on, less and less people were there. The spectators made their way back down to the finish-line to see the award ceremonies. I on the other hand, headed back down to Creekside to enjoy the deep soaker tub back at our room at Evolution!
I also learned that night that Whistler has an awesome opportunity for the youngsters who might be interesting in par-taking in learning the sport of Luge. If you check out How To Get Involved with the Sport of Luge, kids age 8-14 can attend a Luge camp for the small price of $30/person! Crazy good deal, for something that is out of the ordinary! They had some Luge demonstrations between the 1st and 2nd heat closer to the bottom of the track but it would have taken me a while to get down there to photograph it.