Here is John Stouffer and his latest BLOG entry.
Torino 2006 Day 5
Current mood: working
Getting Down To Business
Torino 2006 Day 5
Antti Autti get's aero in the gusting wind.
The NBC Olympic Snowboarding crew has been getting down to business. The Opening ceremonies are only a day away, and the men’s halfpipe is three days away.
The crew has been getting serious about preparation for our coverage of the event. Pat Parnell and Todd Richards are the main commentators, while Tina Dixon is going to be doing sideline interviews. Mark Sullivan, who’s from Snowboard Magazine, is spotting and really giving all his expertise about the sport and people in it. And I’m going to be the statistician, which should be really exciting.
1998 Olympic Gold Medalist and three time Swiss Olympian Gian Simmen
So last night we had a nice dinner out and then had a small meeting over a couple of drinks. Pat, Mark and myself tried to cut down the field and look at who the contenders were. Then I was checking out the NBC Research Manual to see who was in there or if they were missing anyone, and there were a couple of key competitors missing. But that wasn’t really a problem because all the bios are on the internet, and I just had to print them out in the morning.
That concluded another nice evening on the town, and we reconvened this morning at 9 am to head over to practice again. You can tell everything’s getting closer to the actual games now. The town of Bardonecchia had more police, more check points, and more people in it.
Police sled. I am sure glad they don't have these in Idaho.
Also, the lines for security getting into the venue were longer. But now they have two medal detectors working, whereas yesterday there was only one. However, we all agree that on the day of the competitions, we’ve got to show up hours early to fight the traffic and crowds. I think we’re planning on being at the event around 6:30 or 7 am just to make sure everything goes smoothing. It wouldn’t be good to have the TV announcers late for the TV show!
After a quick breakfast, it was out to the pipe. It was colder today, but still sunny blue skies. The pipe was hard as a rock and I was glad I wasn’t riding it. I’m sure the tuners at the top of the pipe were sharpening edges big time today.
Right when we got out to the pipe, one of the US coaches told us that Todd Richards caused some controversy yesterday by riding the pipe for an hour or so with all the riders. (Todd’s a former Olympian and still rips in the pipe, so it’s not like he was getting in the way of anyone.) But apparently the Canadians and Japanese weren’t stoked that he got to do it, and their announcers didn’t and threatened to file formal protests. But it was the head judge of the contest that gave Todd the bib to ride, and nobody said anything while he was doing it. I think they were just bummed because Todd was outriding their best riders! Ha!
Shaun White decided to take the day off and wasn’t riding, but he hung out for a little while. Mason Aguirre was killing it, throwing the most consistent runs down the pipe, with big airs and back-to-back 10s and 9s. He looked locked in at the same level as he’s been at the X Games or last Grand Prix contests.
Andy Finch came to practice today and rode through the pain without the aid of Cortizone for his mangeled foot. They don't call him the Pitbull for nothing. Respect.
Andy Finch has been sporting a bruised foot and had been skipping practice, but was suited up and rode today. He took a couple of mellow runs, and then started going bigger, but wasn’t spinning. He landed flat on his foot on his third or fourth run, and decided that was enough.
Danny Kass was cruising, spinning here and there, but you could tell he wasn’t stressing on it.
On the women’s side, Gretchen was putting her runs together, sticking the Crippler off the first hit. She hadn’t been riding too much, but looked better today and definitely elevated herself back into the top contender spot. Kelly Clark might just give her a run for her money, though, and it definitely peaking at the right time. And Elena Hight was just cruising, trying to take her mind off the chaos around her.
Word from the US coaches is that Hannah Teter got a shot of cortisone in her bad knee to take away some of the chronic pain she has and get her through the event.
Overall, the US team is still looking like it could get two or three medals in both men’s and women’s pipe.
However, there are a couple of other riders who might surprise everything. The Finns are looking good, but aren’t putting together complete runs yet. Antti Autti slammed super hard on one run at the bottom of the pipe, and was pissed. He definitely was working out some kinks. Risto was also riding good, but not getting complete runs in.
Another rider who slammed pretty hard was Giacomo Kratter. He stuck a 1260, but also slammed his face to the lip in a bad crash and sat at the bottom of the pipe recovering for a while.
Another to watch was France’s Matthieu Crepel, who was spinning 1080s hard, but wasn’t going as big out of the pipe.
Our crew spent some time up in the broadcast booth, getting a feel for what it would be like during game day. Todd called some runs with total ad lib comments and had us all rolling in our chairs. The computer I’m supposed to be able to work was on, but wasn’t working yet, so that will be interesting to figure out eventually.
There were more people with cameras watching the whole show today, and the main camera crew was up and running, practicing on following the riders. But they constantly pushed in too close to the riders. We’ve talked to our boss, Billy Matthews, about that, and he’s going to talk to their crew tomorrow to try to encourage them to not ever lose sight of the lip when riders are launching out of the pipe. The main reason is if you show the lip of the pipe, you get a good reference of how high out of the pipe the riders are really getting. But if you just run a picture without it, you can’t tell.
China makes their Olympic snowboarding debut in 2006.
After practice we hung out at the bottom and talked to some of the riders. I met one of the two girls from Russia competing. Maria Prusakova, age 16, speaks English very well, and is really excited to be at the Olympics. She’s the first Russian from Moscow to compete in the snowboarding Olympic events. She’s also the youngest person on the Russian Winter Olympic team.
I also met one of the Spanish team members and had a nice talk with them, and Pat talked with one of the Japanese coaches to learn a little more about their team.
Todd with the POV kit.
After the practice was over and things were a little cleared out, Todd Richards got suited up with a POV camera on his helmet, one mounted to his boot, and one strapped to his back looking over his shoulder, and rode down the pipe. The idea was to give TV viewers a feel for what riding down the pipe was. With no warm up run and all the equipment strapped to his back, he did straight airs and just got over the lip on a couple of hits. He wasn’t stoked and vowed to do it again tomorrow to get a better run in.
After a quick lunch, we headed up on the slopes and took a couple of runs at the top of the resort (it’s called Melezet if any of you want to look it up on the Internet.)
We made a couple of crusty powder runs (can you say mixed conditions, with super icy hardpack on the groomers, yuck) then headed down and checked out the graphics package for the show. We got to see how the rider’s bios and scores would pop up on the bottom of the screen during the show. I’m supposed to go over all the graphics later tonight. It was really interesting to see some more of the behind the scenes work. There are so many people working on so many things that it’s amazing it all comes together, but it will.
By 4 we headed back to the hotel and then had another meeting, this time with Billy, to talk about main contenders in the halfpipe competitions, what the main angles and story lines were, and what some of his ideas for the on-air broadcasting are.
We also prepped for tomorrow, which will include more practicing for us in the broadcast booth. Todd gets a lesson in the machine that will let him draw lines on the screen during replays (just like John Madden does on football).
The crew will have cameras rolling, and we’ll do a quick thing with Shaun White and might do something for the today show, or voice over a short segment that will air during the opening ceremonies giving a little preview of the halfpipe contest and who the contenders are. Damn, it’s getting close!
Anyway, you get the picture. It’s game on now!
Got to head to dinner now. More tomorrow.
-John
