Tinkerblue

woohoo, Australia won it's first medal of the Games - a silver in the men's moguls to Dale Begg-Smith. And Canada won it's first gold of the Games, and the first gold on home soil ever - Alexandre Bilodeau in the men's moguls.

More photos

You can see lots more of my photos from the Games so far on Flickr.

Aussies in Action Today

Three Australians will be competiting today - Sunday Feburary 14th.

Dale Begg-Smith and Ramone Cooper in the Men's Moguls and Alexis Almoukov in the Men's Biathlon 10km sprint.

Go Aussies Go.

Whistlers' Own Torch Cauldron

It was lit as part of the first Victory Ceremony at Whistler Medals Plaza earlier this evening.

Ski Jump

What in the world makes someone want to take up ski jumping?  The thought of it terrifies me.  But it's exciting to watch.  The ski jump stadium is one of the venue where I am responsible for the retail tents. 

Our first day of competition, the qualifying round, was Friday morning before the Opening Ceremony.  The medal round was this morning.  In fact ski jump was the first gold medal of the Games.

I'm pretty sure there weren't any Australian jumpers, but there were definately some Aussies in the crowd.

And our ski jump kiosk was busy for most of the day.  Spectators bought a lot of cowbells.

 

 

RIP Nodar Kumaritashvili

 
November 25th, 1988 - February 12th, 2010

Opening Ceremony, what did you think?

So now that the Opening Ceremony has been and gone I can comment.  Do you know how hard it was not to say anything at all.

Hopefully you've all had a chance to see it, or at least some of it, I can tell you my top 3.

• The whales
• KD Lang
• The standing ovation that the Georgian Team received.

    image VANOC/COVAN
 

Other moments:

• The Aussies coming into the stadium, although their uniform was blah.
• Sarah McLachlan, Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams
• The First Nations dancers
• The snowboarder who jumped through the rings at the beginning
• The lighting of the cauldron, although Wayne Gretzky was a little to predictable

I wasn't so keen on:

• The version of the National Anthem
• The Peter Pan kid on the prairie fields thingy

Overall I thought it was awesome.

Hubby took this photo earlier this evening. 1 day, 30 minutes and 55 seconds to the opening of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Opening Ceremony Dress Rehearsal

We were lucky enough to be able to attend a dress rehearsal of the opening ceremony at Stadium (BC Place) last night.  My mum, dad, hubby and I all got to go. 

I can't tell you much, or anything at all.  We were asked not to reveal any details or take any photos.  We haven't and we won't.  I'm not a big fan of the people who have posted details.  Why spoil the surprise?

What I will tell you is, you should watch it tomorrow night.  Either at home, at the pub, or at one of the live sites.  Yeah, there were bits that didn't wow me, but overall it was quite spectacular. I'll be watching again tomorrow.

New Vancouver 2010 Lucky Loonie out tomorrow - Feb 12th

Tomorrow the Royal Canadian mint releases the Vancouver 2010 Lucky Loonie. You can wait to get one in your change, or you can get them at RBC branches and participating Petro Canada location. 

Don't forget to get one for you collector's card. I think we need 7-8 of them.  I think I'll just go to the bank, rather than trying to find them in my change.  It could take forever.

The story of the Lucky Loonie began at the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Winter Games.  The icemaker, a Canadian, Trent Evans, buried a loonie under the centre ice.  Both the Canadian men's and women's ice hockey teams went on to win gold.