I know I'm not a professional skier, nor am I in anyway qualified from a cozy couch position three time zones away to say what should or should not happen on the slopes of Vancouver. But I think I know best in this case. During the first run of the Women's Giant Slalom, the fog was so thick I couldn't find the skier on the track on the television. They would cut to a different camera angle, and I knew there must be a competitor somewhere on my screen, but she may as well have been the golf ball in the blue sky of the Master's tournament. Even bright blue Julia Mancuso was indistinguishable. But instead of postponing the event, the officials decided to compress the run by pinching the lag time between skiers, forcing two skiers to be on the course at all times. I'm guessing they knew the possibility of a crash impacting the flow, and forcing the subsequent competitor to stop, but likely just crossed their fingers and hoped for the best.
Posting the best times at the check points, Lindsay Vonn was well on her way to a position in the top ten when she wiped out. Whether Mancuso was already on the course when Vonn wiped out or not, I do not know. If she was still in the starter gate, the officials did a poor job of pausing the action. Epic failure is more like it. If she was already on the mountain, it was barely. Nonetheless, she was stalled half way down by the safety yellow flag, forced to head back up and start again. Thirteen skiers later, and that much more damage to the course, she finished a dismal 18th in round one. And she cried as privately as she could. And I cried with her. The defending gold medalist, through no fault of her own, lost the physical and mental edge she was clearly demonstrating in her original first run, and in the end she lost the repeat top spot on the podium. Shame on you, Vancouver. Shame on you.
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