Yvonne Visser's Travel Diary
December 7, 2005
Constructing Olympics is a hurry-up operation
The mammoth task of Olympic construction continues at a cumbersome pace here
in Sestriere, the site of one of the Olympic Villages for Turin 2006.
We have arrived to test the Olympic track, with 30 other nations, to hone
the skills for the ultimate race to come in February. This high alpine town
is full of construction workers, moving like honey bees around the hive of
the Olympic Village.
The ground is covered with a light dusting of snow, making everything seem
cleaner and more organized. The feel is chaotic, with construction everywhere,
and yet the work continues at the pace of the local custom, which simply means
starting work at 8 a.m., stopping for lunch from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., and then
finishing at 5:30 p.m. Even the 24-hour gas stations stop for two hours for
lunch.
This is the legacy of European living, for better or worse, and when mixed
with the fast-paced and always-open and available North American standards,
brings a certain amount of uneasiness for all the team leaders.
I have no way of knowing, but I am certain that this is not unusual, as every
city that host an event as big as the Olympics struggles to get everything
completed in time.
I am convinced that the biggest word during these upcoming Olympic Games
in less than 80 days will be patience.
In my opinion, the people here are getting ready in there own way by doing
all the last minute construction, although it seems many larger items have
a long way to completion.
I can see at least five cranes in my view from the hotel room, lifting roofing
and other materials, most buildings are yet open, top and sides, to the early
winter weather.
This small high alpine town operates on tourism dollars, and seems to be
in their off-season.
In a short couple of weeks, the rooms will again be full and slopes swarming
with skiers. There is little to no snow at this point, and you can see up
to 20 snow making guns going at times up on the ski hill, preparing a stock
pile base for a hassle free Olympic downhill race.
But for right now, there is nothing happening (other than frenzied hotel
and village construction), a quiet and calm that precedes the storm.
Every hotel is upside down, electricity flickers, no water during certain
hours as the roads are being ripped up to put extra pipe in, no Internet service,
even the tourist centre in closed.
It is literally a ghost town, with an eerie sense of foreboding excitement,
but perhaps no notion of the magnitude of the Olympics soon to come in fewer
than three months.
We have been told through the rumour mill that 3,500 workers will come into
Sestriere (a town of around 1,500 people) next week to move into a fast(er)
pace of construction.
The story is that the building is six months behind and that these sites
are at about the same construction phase as Vancouver and Whistler are right
now in some venues.
The road up to the village is a 17 km gut-wrenching winding narrow two-lane
alpine road ending at 2,026 metres on the top of the mountain.
It has many 90-degree turns, in which the transport trucks and many construction
vehicles have to take the whole road.
The road itself is still under construction at certain points.
To get to the bobsleigh, skeleton, and luge facilities, everyone involved
must go 30 minutes down this road, almost to the bowels of the valley, and
of course, returning on completion of the training or event.
If you think the Sea to Sky highway is a long and winding road, you ain't
seen nothing yet. It is uncertain at this point how the Italians will handle
the transportation issues that this tiny access road will present. It is one
of the most hotly-debated issues of the whole village: how to get athletes,
staff, media, coaches and support staff everywhere that they need to be, on
time.
One year ago, we stood from the same hotel, and the scene below in the village
has changed since then. Not a lot, but still changed.
The athlete village is below, in the middle of town, in aquamarine blue tine
and white, looking like it should be in Greece, or at least near the water.
The start houses and media area at the bottom of the downhill run are in
construction.
It's basically ATCO trailers stacked two to three high on scaffolding, looking
quite like Lego play pieces.
Vancouver and Whistler will soon start on their Olympic-sized projects, and
I hope for them that this last-minute race is not one that they will be in.
We are on to World Cup No. 3 above Innsbruck in Igls, Austria (the Sound
of Music was filmed here) Thursday and Friday.
Watch for some great Canadian results.
Yvonne Visser is a Nanaimo massage therapist and former Olympian who
is part of the health care team with the Canadian Olympic Committee tending
to athletes in alpine, snowboarding, skeleton, bobsleigh, and luge at the
2006Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. Her column appears monthly in the Daily
News .
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