Way back when Steph and I were talking to our husbands about the Paralympics. Neither hubby or Scott believed there was such a thing as the visually impaired biathlon. So Steph and I bought 4 tickets to the Paralympic Biathlon. Then Steph and Scott up and went to New Zealand instead.
So yesterday hubby and I headed up to Whistler Paralympic Park. It was kind of weird driving in. I was in my own little car, with no Vehicle Access Pass and no accreditation. And it was kind of sad. Our tent has already been removed. It used to sit right beside the ticket box office. And look now there's a big empty space.
During the Olympics , there were 3 stadiums at Whistler Olympic Park - Ski Jump, Biathlon and Cross Country. For the Paralympics only the cross country stadium is in use. Both the cross country and the biathlon events will be held in the one stadium.
- Athletes are categorized as standing, sitting or visually impaired and compete against athletes with similar disabilities
- visually impaired skiers ski with a guide
- Paralympic biathletes always shoot from the prone position
- Visually impaired skiers use a an acoustic system for shooting that uses differing tone as the rifle is aimed towards the bullseye
- The bullseye is 15mm in diameter, there are 5 targets all in a row, the distance between the skier and the targets is 10 metres.
Yesterday we watched the qualification and finals of the men's and women's 2.4km pursuit sitting, 3km pursuit standing and 3km visually impaired. I'm pretty sure there were no Aussies in any of the events, but we did get to see a couple of Canadians, including Brian McKeever and his brother and guide Robin. They finished 6th.
After the event was complete we headed into Whistler to have a burger and beer at the Brewpub.
and stopped in briefly at the Medals Plaza to say hi to the boys before heading back to Vancouver.