Looking ahead to Vancouver 2010

The parade of athletes

Day 21 February 26, 2006 - Today is the last day of the XX Olympics Winter Games here in Turin, Italy. When we woke up we had to pre-pack a little bit because we are leaving tomorrow at about noon. It will take us a while to get to Torino for the ceremonies because we are in Sestriere and they have to move every athlete, from every Olympic village to the hockey stadium, which is right beside the stadium where we will march in. We left for the 8oclock opening ceremonies at 4:30 just to get there on time. It ended up to not take as long as everyone thought it would take and we were there really early. But of course we found things do to. Graeme, Max and I played hockey, with miniature sticks, in the hockey arena!

We got called over to receive flowers with Torino 2006 and a Canadian Flag in it. It was about how the Olympics are coming to Vancouver Canada in 2010. When we walked in, we could throw them into the crowd or we could keep them. When I walked in ... I saw a little kid. She looked right at me with her hands hanging down so I handed them to her!

When we were about to walk into the stadium, I got a surprise. I was expecting that we were going to walk in as countries. But the Olympics are all about the world coming together, so in the opening ceremonies, they introduce the countries, and for the closing it symbolizes how every country has come together in peace. Every country walks in together showing that everyone has come together. When I walked into the stadium, we had a lot of Canadians around us. We all threw our flowers at the crowd and slapped high fives with as many people as we could. Then we sat in the corner where all of the athletes were and watched the ceremonies.

They were very interesting; it was similar to a mini cirque du soleil. Then once it was all over, all of the performers and athletes came onto the enormous stage and danced/walked around. We left and went back to the village and they had a party in the village for the athletes, coaches and officials. I met more athletes as the seconds went by; everyone is stress free and just wanted to relax. At this party, there were singers, dancers, food and free drinks.

Afterwards everyone went home and in another 4 years everyone will meet in Vancouver for the XXI Olympics Winter Games, and I am planning on being there, finishing on the podium for Canada. Tomorrow we are off to Finland for more competitions. Ciao from Italy, Terve from Finland!
Day 15 February 20, 2006 - Today we had the team competition, the last competition that we will have at the 2006 Olympics. I am using this competition just to gain as much experience as possible. We are not going for results just jumping for joy. I was hoping to beat the Americans. It would be hard but it could have been done. If we did, I would have pleased with how we did, but they just snuck by us.

I thought that the Olympics would just be like another world cup competition but really everyone is more serious. These competitions only come every 4 years and an athlete most likely only gets to go at most 2-3 times a career. All in all, these Olympics were a wonderful experience and a very valuable lesson in my ski jumping career.
Stefan






Torino 2006 mascots

Day 12 February 17 - I guess the Olympic weather gods aren't in Sestriere at the moment. The weather lately hasn't been like when we first arrived. It is snowing very had and the wind has picked up big time. Lucky for us we have an underground tunnel that connects every building in the village, except the cafeteria, that we can walk through and don't get stuck walking through the snow and wind.

But in Pragelato, where the jump hills are, the wind usually dies as the night goes on and luckily our competitions are during the evening hours. Today, the weather got nicer as the day went by. It was looking a lot better out when we went to the hill compared to when we woke up. When we arrived at the hill, the wind was still a bit strong for most of the competitor's liking. But we got ready just like usual and prepared as if it was another day of competition. We had one training round and then we had qualification; the jump that counted. Of course the weathermen here in Italy were right, during the training round, the wind slowly died down and it was looking much better for the qualification round. In the Qualification round, the wind was the best I saw all day, but it still wasn't perfect. I had just a normal jump because I knew I could qualify with ease. Reaching my goal, which is to get into top 30, will be easier said than done.

Graeme had a wonderful jump, with very little World Cup experience, and qualified for his first time in the Winter Olympic Games. It was astonishing.

We are just about to go to sleep to be well prepped for the big competition tomorrow evening.
Day 13 February 18 - Once again, when we woke up it was same old outside. The wind was blowing and the snow was falling more than ever. But just like some other days I had a good feeling that the wind would calm down and the snow would stop.

We have our trial round at 4:30, our first competition round at 6:00 and the second competition round at 7:30. When we arrived at the hill, I did what I always do. Go to the cafeteria, grab a drink and a little bite to eat. Then I watched the TV that is showing the Olympics; it was the Super G today that we watched. Just under an hour before the trial round I went for my warm up run and got ready for the competition.

I took the trial round jump as just a normal training round just to get use to the hill and figure out the conditions for that day. It was just the same as always, a little bit of tail wind, not much pressure under the skis because we are so high up in the mountains. But the hill itself is in perfect condition, but who thought, it is the Olympic Games. I'm sure it has to be better than perfect.

I know what I have to do in order to reach my goal of being top 30. The one thing I don't like about my sport is that making the cut is always close. You might make it or you might be a couple meters short of making it. My first just was jump was just a normal jump for me, nothing special. My media attaché and I were standing in the press area counting down the jumpers until I knew that I was in the top 30. I reached my goal, and I am pleased with that.

Then on my second jump I got way too hyped up and didn’t jump as well as I could. I tried too hard and I ended up doing what I wasn't supposed to do. It has been my main problem for the past month. It has an easy fix but the fix isn't permanent, it comes back every now and then …. during the Olympics. But overall I was happy with my jumping today.

Next, we have training tomorrow for the Team Competition on the 20 th.

Then we are done at the Olympics, and I am off to Finland, Norway and Slovenia for more World Cups and my first ever Ski Flying World Championships! Hopefully I can jump 200 meters or more.


On our wat to the jumps; Mike, Stefan, Gregor, Graeme, Ted and Greg
The view from our building

Day 11 February 16, 2006 - We went to the hill at our usual 2 hours before the competition and it still wasn't very nice outside. Even though it’s not very nice outside, we still got ready like usual just in case it cleared up and we were able to jump. We got all ready; everyone got changed and headed up for their training jump. The other Canadian guys have early start numbers; I am a little later because I have World Cup points. The competitors without points have to draw for their start numbers, while the jumpers with points are seeded according to how many points they have.

After I got changed and headed up for my jump I saw Greg going down. Ted had told him not to jump. Then a couple chairs after him I saw Mike coming down. Ted had also told him not to jump. And a couple chairs after him I saw Graeme coming down. Ted also told him not to jump. Because training wasn’t officially cancelled, I still went up trying to pretend it was just a normal day of jumping. We have a TV in our little warm up hut on top of the Ski Jump and you can see what kind of wind it is. It was taking them about 3 times as long it should because the wind was so awful. After a couple of jumpers I decided not to jump because the wind was gusty and in every direction, it's better to be safe than sorry. When I was about to get on the chair lift, the announcer said over the loud speaker that the jumping was cancelled due to wind. So we went home and went to bed. We need a good rest for Qualification tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will turn around and be nice to us.
Day 10 February 15, 2006 - It sure isn't nice outside. It is snowing really hard and the wind is whistling throughout the village. One of the American ski jumpers dads went to the hill to watch the Nordic Combined Team event in the morning, and it got cancelled. He says that it is a hurricane at the jumps, so I guess we’ll see if it clears up for tomorrow's training.
Day 9 February 14, 2006 - Today we had our first day of training and our first jumps on these brand new Olympic hills. When we woke up we were a little scared because it was pretty windy and snowing pretty hard. This has been our first day of "bad" weather. But usually in the evening it calms down, especially the wind. Around 2 o'clock we went for lunch and it was if it was a new day. The snow stopped and the sun was so bright it hurt my eyes. We went to hill around 3 o'clock, 2 hours early, because who knows how the roads are going to be. There could be lots of cars and we need to get there to get prepared for the day of jumping.

In training, I just get a feel for the hill. I figure out how the hill flies. Are there any sticky parts? Is the compression strong in the transition? There are a lot of different feelings I get on every hill. Because we so high up in altitude there isn't much air pressure to fly on so you have to rely on your takeoff. These are my first jumps on these new hills and wow the hills are pretty difficult. I still need some more practice, but we have training again in two days so we have 3 more jumps to get used to the hill.
Day 8 February 13, 2006 - Well because we had our competition yesterday, Ted told us to relax today and "feel like a new born tomorrow."

So I slept in, woke up and just hung around all day.

Graeme and I spent most of day in the games room they have here. The games consist of foosball, pool and air hockey. The pool table is good; they have two sizes of cues and of course all of the tips on the big cues are broken, so we have to play with the small cues. It's harder than I expected. Foosball is pretty fun; my brother Andrew is pretty good so I am okay at it. Graeme and I tried taking on the two Italian jumpers. Europeans are crazy in this game. One game we played was pretty close; it was 10-8 for the Italians. All of the other games we lost 10-3, 10-2, 10-4. I don't know how they can hit the ball so hard. Air hockey. What a crazy game. If there is anything in the village that will injure me and take me out of the competition it’s an air hockey puck. It is a workout for us because half of the time we are chasing the puck around because when it hits the side sometimes it flies half way across the room.

My brother and my uncle came to see me too. We went out for lunch and also spent some time visiting. After all the games and visiting, I watched TV, talked to other athletes in the athlete lounge, went for a run and went to bed early. Tomorrow we have training on the big hill, hopefully the weather will hold up.
On our way to the jumps; Mike, Stefan, Gregor, Graeme, Ted and Greg

My view from the jumps



Stefan at training

Day 7 February 12, 2006 - What a place, it's as if the Olympics Gods are out watching over us. I haven't seen more than 2 clouds in the sky the entire time we've been here. The temperature is just under 0 and it couldn't be more beautiful out in the mountains on top of a valley in Italy.

We have our first Olympic competition today. My goal is to get top 30; I can achieve that if I have a decent jump. But unfortunately the other Canadian guys haven't had the World Cup experience that I have had, so they are here mainly just for experience for 2010. Graeme is jumping pretty well; he has really brought his jumping together for the Olympic Games. Greg is still having problem after his crash in Finland at the beginning of the winter. Mike is also jumping decent, better than I expected that he would. Today I will be the only Canadian on the hill, but I know the other guys will be cheering me on from the bottom of the hill. CBC plans on taping my jump and then having the other guy's reaction as I jump.

My competition jump today was probably one of my worst jumps all winter and I ended up in 42nd place. Overall my jumping is still pretty good, just not as good as I would like. It was a good experience tonight and I learned a lot. I am a bigger hill kind of guy. The small hill isn't my type of thing; I am really looking forward to jumping to big hill here. I’ve never jumped on it and I hear it is really fun and different.
Day 6 February 11, 2006 - We prepared for the day the same as usual. We woke up around 8 to go for breakfast around 8:30. My dad, our team leader, received a phone call asking if CBC could do an interview us before the training. So we went to the hill a little earlier than usual. CBC talked to us about the whole Olympic experience for 5-10minutes a person.

After that we got back to our business and prepared for the qualification tonight. The qualification decides who gets to compete in the competition tomorrow. Only the top 50 guys in the world will advance into the competition and there are 69 competitors entered. Today we have one training jump and then one jump to make it count. Lately on the hill I have been struggling and not performing like I have been in other world cups. I am having some technical problems that could be easily fixed with a couple days of training. But I don’t have couple of days of training. I have to compete with what I have now and perform on the jumps that I need to do well on.

My training jump didn’t go very well so I got a little nervous. I think that was a good thing. My qualification jump ended up being better than most of my jumps here recently. I ended up 21st after qualification and I advanced into the next round. Tomorrow is a new day and a new competition. Everyone will be putting 100% effort; it will be a tough competition.

Then back to the village to rest for the big day.
Day 5 February 10, 2006 - Today was another day of Official Training and we were finally able to jump! The conditions weren't the best that I have seen, but the hills are in perfect shape. The track is icy, the landing hill couldn't be any smoother and there is a bright blue sky without a cloud in sight. I couldn't wait to jump these hills because this entire winter when on trips in Europe I have been jumping close to every day of the week. But while we are at the Olympics, we have several days off.

We have qualification tomorrow and then the competition on Sunday. Then for big hill we have training Tuesday and Thursday, qualification on Friday and competition on Saturday. And our last and final competition will be the team event which is on the 20 th.

Today was the opening ceremonies. We couldn’t go because tomorrow we have qualifying and I have to rest my legs. Instead of going into Torino, we stayed and watched it on TV and walked around the athlete village in our opening ceremonies jackets and hats and boots. They’re pretty comfortable.

Team at top of Pragelato K125, Graeme, myself, Gregory, Michael
Policeman and I






Ted and I at the Airport

Day 4 February 9, 2006 - Today was the first day of Official Training. But unfortunately the wind wasn’t too favourable for jumping conditions. The training was supposed to start at 5pm and we were going to get three jumps. But we got blown out; this means that there was too much wind for it to be safe to train on the hill. So we all piled back onto the Olympic Transportation Bus and went back home. When we got home all we had to do was go for a relaxation run and stretch afterwards. In the evening we had a Team Canada meeting. This is where the Chef de Mission and Sylvie Bernier talked to us. Marnie McBean also did a motivational talk. Afterwards all of the athletes talked and we were all handed out a Lucky Looney with the Olympic Rings on it. Then we all went home and rested for Training Tomorrow. Hopefully it will run and the wind will be in favour for us!
Day 2 February 7, 2006 - After breakfast, we had a little meeting about what are plans were for the day. We were planning on leaving Torino by 2pm to arrive in Sestriere at 4pm. So we had all morning and early afternoon to see the Olympic Village of Torino.
We started it off by shopping inside the Village, and of course it is just a little souvenir shop. You can buy t-shirts, pins, anything with Torino 2006 on it.
So we decided to go to the Shopping Mall beside the Village that is only for accredited people. We walked around and found amazing deals on clothing. Clothing is a big market in the country of Italy. We were told by the head of security, he is from the RCMP, that if you buy a rip off of a clothing line in Italy, you will be arrested. The store that you bought it from will not have any blame what so ever. So I was a little nervous buying cheaper than normal clothes. After we were done shopping we went back to our room and picked up all of our bags. We brought them to the bus station and hopped and on bus up to Sestriere. Before we even left the village we were stopped by the local Police. Ends up that we needed a police escort from village to village. We had a cop car in front and behind us as well as a policeman onboard our bus. Once we arrived at our village we unpacked and settled in for the night.
Day 3 February 8, 2006 - We still have to wait one more day until we can jump, tomorrow is the first official training. We got to sleep in a little bit and just have a relaxing day. Graeme and I are getting to be pool sharks. Well we think so at least. We have been playing pool at least every day. After lunch we had our first physical workout of the trip.
After our workout we went to the hill to see what the whole scenery and situation is at the hill. The Nordic Combiners were jumping so we got to see some jumpers jump and see what the hills are like. I have been told that the K95 is very similar to the K90 in Park City and the K125 is very similar to the K120 in Oberstdorf, Germany. These are both good things because before we left for Europe we had a training camp in Park City that went very well for me.
Also I competed on the 4 Hill Tournament this year; Oberstdorf is included in this Tournament. For ski jumpers this tournament is equal in the importance as Wimbledon or The Masters. They have 4 competitions on different hills in Germany and Austria and all of the points are added together. The winner is the competitor with the most points after the fourth competition. They usually win a car and close to half a million dollars in sponsorships, endorsements and as prize money. So I have of experience on both of these hills, but I have yet to jump on the hills here in Pragelato, Italy. Tomorrow this will change!
Update from Torino
Day 1 Arrival on the February 6th, 2006 - We arrived in Torino around dinner time; we dropped our stuff off in our temporary rooms in the Torino athlete village just for the night. We went straight to the Canadian Olympic Committee Office in Torino and went straight to outfitting. We received all of our clothing, about 4 jackets, 4 pants, a blazer and dress pants, 2 sets of long underwear, underwear, socks, fleeces, vests, 5 hats, 2 gloves, 7 t-shirts, winter boots, a day bag, back pack and a duffle bag. With how the big the duffle bag is, I was impressed that they fit all of the clothing in it.
After we tried on all of our clothing, if the pants were too long, we got them hemmed by the seamstress here, and if the shirts were too big, we just asked for a smaller shirt. After the outfitting ordeal, we went and ate dinner in the cafeteria. Since the Olympics is sponsored by McDonalds and Coca Cola, there are Coca Cola vending machines all over every village. We received a little PowerAde key chain that we swipe in front of a scanner and get any beverage we desire.
In every village there is also an entertainment area with foosball, pool, air hockey and Play Station 2’s. Graeme and I just went and played pool for the rest of the night.
The jump in Zakopane, Poland
In front of our Hotel Tadeusz
Munich Soccer Dome (a little blurry because we were driving)
Our Van Leaving for the second competition
Graeme in Willingen
The Crowd

Inrun at Willingen, Germany
February 5, 2006 - Today is the Team competition and this consists of 4 jumpers on each team. The total points of all 4 jumpers are added together and the team with the most points is declared the winner. There are only 3 of us here, Graeme, Mike and I, so today we are watching. But we also have to drive close to Munich today because we are flying at 3pm tomorrow afternoon for Torino. So we watched the first round of competition and then started our 6 hour drive to Munich. We drove for 4 hours and stopped on the way at hotel on the side of the autobahn again. It is just a little motel, gas station and a restaurant. We ate dinner, watched a movie and went to bed.
February 4, 2006 - Today was the Individual competition here. The wind was all over the place, lots of head wind to tail wind within a couple of jumpers. In the first round, I had my best jump of all the whole winter. With a little bit of wind, I jumped 137 meters. I was in first place by a long way after 26 jumpers. This jump boosts my confidence going into the Olympics. I saw that with a good jump I can compete with the best in the world. Unfortunately, they decided to lower the gate. Because of doing this, they had the restart the round and that meant that my jump meant nothing. I had to quickly get to the top, rewax my skis and prepare for my next jump. They sent the remainder of the 50 jumpers. After all of the competitors jumped once, they sent the competitors that had to do their re-jump. They decreased the speed by 1 km/h and the wind was terrible for the last couple jumpers. I had just an average jump with tail wind and I ended up going 109 meters. That was just enough to make into the top 30 and I was able to take my second jump. This jump I tried psyching myself up and ended up being too energized. My final jump was below average for me and with more tail wind than my previous jump, I jumped 103 meters.

All in all I am jumping pretty well leading up to the Olympics games. I know what I have to do to jump properly and it’s just a matter of putting the right amount of pressure on my shoulders, not too much but not too little. Tomorrow is the team competition but since Greg Baxter went to Slovenia for the World Junior Ski Championships this week, we only have 3 competitors here and we will not be able to ski a team tomorrow. I can watch and learn how the best guys compete.
Unfortunately, this being Graeme’s second world cup, he was one of the four who did not qualify. He jumped 98 meters but he is here just for experience for the Olympics in Italy. There isn’t any pressure on him for any results. I ended up 20th with a jump of 116 meters. I tried something new because this hill is very different than any others. Tomorrow I will go back to my usual technique and I am looking forward to the competition. We went back to the hill just before dinner at about 6pm. They had an opening ceremony to introduce all of the teams to the audience. They had a fireworks and laser show. They gather all of the teams in the VIP room for drinks prior to going out on a balcony that overlooks the whole audience. They shoot fireworks to music while lasers are shooting all over the place. Once the fireworks were done we walked onto a balcony above everyone. There are lights all focused on you and you can’t see the crowd at all. Two hosts introduce every team and talk to the coach in a humorous manner. Once everyone team has been introduced, everyone goes home and rests up for the competition the next day.
February 3, 2006 - Today was Official Training and Qualification. The conditions here weren’t very consistent. There wasn’t much wind during the training but when it came to competition the wind gradually picked up. Graeme was lucky number 1 today, I was number 20. In training I just had a normal jump, nothing special -- just trying to get a feel for the hill. There are 54 competitors here and 4 jumpers will not make it to the next round due to only 50 jumpers get to go in the competition. All day I was jumping consistent, I jumped 129 meters in training. When it came to the qualification round, the wind was playing games. When they started, there was a little bit of wind from behind. This is very unfavourable because there isn’t as much pressure on your body as normal so it is harder to fly. As the round went on the wind slowly picked up more and more. By the time is got to me, there wasn’t any wind at all and when it got to the very end, there was a lot of head wind. Head wind is good because this allows you to fly farther much easier.
World Cup Journal by Stefan Read
Hello from Willingen, Germany
February 2, 2006 - We set our alarm clocks this morning at 3am in order to drive from Zakopane, Poland to Willingen, Germany, 900 kilometeres away. Ted has trouble getting over jet lag; that is why we left at 3am. None of us complained because in our big van we only had 3 passengers. It was a 13 hour drive and I slept 11 hours of it. Every now and then we would stop at a gas station; they were our only pit stops on the road. Ted, being the amazing coach he is, drove the entire way. When we got to Willingen, we did what we always do. We went directly to the race office where they have all of our information set up--what hotel we are staying in, what times the competitions are at and any other events that will be happening that we will have to attend. This town is very small with just one main street but a lot of bed and breakfasts around the main street. We got settled in our hotel and I took the guys for a run to the “Ski Schanze” (Ski Jump in German), it is only about 2km out of town.This town is just like any others in Germany. There are one or two 5 star hotels; lots of 3 star bed and breakfasts. There are a couple of shops, lots of banks and lots of restaurants/bars. It is weird how a little German town has more banks than shops. But that’s just one of many differences compared to Canadian towns.
January 29, 2006 - Again a sunny day in Poland, this small resort town is the perfect place for a competition. But it’s rare to have many things perfect in this world. When we ate breakfast and were watching the news, we learned a building in Katovice, about 150km away, collapsed because there was too much weight from snow. 68 were killed and 120 were injured. This was a national crisis; they almost cancelled this competition here because of it. But they decided to follow through with the competition, except the spectators were not allowed to make much noise at all. They were allowed to clap but no noise makers of any kinds and even the DJ at the event was not allowed to play his music. They had a prayer and a moment of silence of the victims. But the competition went through anyway, very calmly. It was a very difficult competition because everyone jumped to the same distance. I ended up a little bit early and I dropped 5 meters with put me out of being close to top 20, I ended up 35th. But I took advantage of watching the second jump and I know I can keep learning and learning more just by watching the best in the world. I know what they do, so I can use this to my advantage, because we are training here for 3 days after the competition. After these days of training we will go to Willengen for our 3rd World Cup.
January 28, 2006 - Today we had our first World Cup competition on this trip. The Trial round, to test out the hill, was at 4pm so we arrived at the hill just before 3. As usual my coach, Ted, prepared my skis; he has a magical touch because I am usually one of the fastest guys! I did my warm up, prepared mentally for the whole event and it went pretty well. I was the only Canadian competing. Unfortunately Greg hasn’t been jumping his best over the past months, after his crash in Kuusamo, Finland where he broke his clavicle, so he did not qualify yesterday for this competition. The conditions were just about ideal. There were no clouds in the sky, the in run was solid ice, the landing hill was smooth, but there was just a little bit of tail wind. My jumping today went pretty well; there were a couple of technical mistakes I made. But 23rd in a World Cup, I can’t complain. When I get over my jet lag I will be in top shape for Italy! I jumped 123.5 meters in the first round, the same as the overall world cup leader, and 124.5 meters in the second round. Tomorrow is a new day and just another competition. I will prepare myself the same way as I did today and hope for the best!
January 27th, 2006 - Today we had 2 Official Training jumps at 1pm, 1 at 4pm and then Qualification at 5pm. It was a busy day but it went pretty well. In qualification I jumped into 21st out of 46 competitors. The top 15 on the world ranking list are pre-qualified so they do not count in these results. 2 of the Norwegians didn’t even jump because they were so confident. I jumped 123.5 meters while the winner jumped 136 meters. I am not jumping at peak performance because we just arrived here and it will take a couple days to adjust to everything here i.e. time difference. I know I can jump better than this because before we came to Europe we trained in Park City, Utah for a week and I was jumping very well. There are some very minor adjustments that I can fix. Once I have adjusted I will be able to jump to my 100% potential.
We woke up at 5:15 in the morning so we could be in Poland at a respectable time. It was around an 8/9 hour drive to Poland from Frankfurt. When we arrived in Poland we went directly to the Race Office to pick up our accreditation so we could walk around freely. They are very strict dealing with areas where athletes are allowed. Poland brought police from around the country just for this event. There are police on every street corner. We are staying in a hotel that is owned by the same people that own the hotel that we stayed in on my first trip here in 1999. It is crazy because it is called Tadeusz, that’s the name of our coach. We have 3 rooms here, 2 – doubles, 1 – single. Graeme and I are sharing one room, Greg and Mike in another and Ted in his own room. Of course the food is amazing here, just like always. My favourite part of European breakfasts are that they are very different than any breakfast in Canada. You have a choice of cereal, meat and cheese, hot dogs, eggs, bread/buns, rich milk and many type of juices.
We drove 3 hours to a Hotel on the side of the autobahn and stayed there the night. While driving we passed the Soccer Dome in Munich that is going to hold the World Cup of Soccer coming up this summer.
When we arrived in Munich, we had a competition to see whose bag would come out first. This time it was Graeme who won! Mike was second. Greg, Ted and I waited for our bags but nothing came. Ends up that they did not make it onto our flight. So we had Lufthansa to trace out baggage to see where they were. Surprise…surprise, they were in Frankfurt still. So we had to wait in the Munich Airport for 4 hours until the next flight from Frankfurt to Munich arrived. Of course they were on this flight. We went to the car rental place and rented a big cargo van. I could almost stand up in it, if I were 2 inches shorter.



Ski Jumping Canada
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Update from Zakopane
Hello from Zakopane, Poland.
We left Calgary on the usual 5:45 Frankfurt 844 Flight. The plane ride was very under booked. Graeme and I shared a whole row to ourselves, but of course we slept pretty much the entire way here. I slept on the floor while Graeme slept on all 4 seats. Oops, I didn’t know you are not supposed to sleep on the floor and 2 hours into my nap, I was told to sleep where we sit. Sorry! When we arrive in Frankfurt, we were in a hurry because there was only 40 minutes until our flight to Munich. You would think this would be easy but you have to switch terminals, meaning, you have to walk through a long tunnel, go through security again, pretty much just check in again. It was tight.
Tunnel connecting Terminals
Main Street Willingen, Germany
Guess where the Canadians
are staying?



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