Former ski racer Rob Boyd knows Whistler's men's downhill course better than almost anyone, having won a career-defining World Cup event there in 1989. He lives near the finish line and still skis the twisting, plunging route. These days, without a safety net.
By Brian Hutchinson, National Post
In this occasional series, the National Post profiles some of the key Olympic venues to be showcased during the Games.
WHISTLER, B.C. -- Former ski racer Rob Boyd knows Whistler's men's downhill course better than almost anyone, having won a career-defining World Cup event there in 1989. He lives near the finish line and still skis the twisting, plunging route. These days, without a safety net.
He can describe with precision every section, every roller, jump and turn. But ask him to describe his feelings for the track and words start to fail him.
It's been a complicated relationship. Boyd is as steady as they come. This downhill course is not. It has multiple personalities and suffers wild mood swings: stormy one minute, sunny the next. Too difficult for most to love, but blessed with physical attributes and a pedigree. Impossible to ignore.
Today, if rain and fog don't spoil the Olympic schedule and force postponement, the Whistler course will demand global attention. Among individually contested Winter Games events, the men's downhill is peerless in prestige and consequence. It can create legends. This one has extra significance. The course on which it will run is named for the late Dave Murray, a legendary Whistler figure, and a stalwart member of that downhill band of brothers known as the Crazy Canucks.
For weeks the 3.1-kilometre piste has been expertly prepared and groomed, and injected with water using a contraption similar in purpose to a Zamboni. Ideally, the Dave Murray Downhill will run like a frozen Formula One track. Canadian racers Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Robbie Dixon, Érik Guay and Jan Hudec have prepared well and are certainly familiar with the route; any one of them could medal today. The race is to start at 11:45 a.m. local time (2:45 p.m. ET).
In truth, no one has a clue what to expect.
Race-day conditions always come down to weather, which at Whistler is notoriously fickle. Drifting fog forced the cancellation of one training run earlier this week, complicating matters for everyone but levelling the field.
Low visibility presents dangers that cannot be adequately addressed on a course as capricious as this.
Under perfect conditions it is among the world's most treacherous downhill runs, ranking behind only the fearsome Streif, on the Hahnenkamm in Austria, and perhaps two Italian tracks, at Bormio and Val Gardena. Those are all venerable, celebrated courses; the Whistler downhill is the lesser-known, having been run in its present state only since the mid-1980s.
It's been featured on the men's World Cup circuit barely a dozen times; it was, in fact, pulled from the downhill roster for a decade after three consecutive races in the mid-1990s were "weathered out."
It's also been altered and adjusted. For the race today, the end of the course was shortened; this allows more spectators to bunch up at the finish line.
For the racers, Boyd says, that's no big sacrifice. The bottom of the Dave Murray track is difficult, but not extreme. Same goes for the start, with its big, wide-open stretch called Double Trouble.
"It's pretty steep up there with some curves and rollers, and racers are turning and getting some airtime, so they've got to be balanced on their skis and looking for speed," Boyd says.
They'll swing into Caddy Shack, twist through Bear Cub and drop into the dreaded Toilet Bowl, known for a fierce compression. Then though another sweeping turn called Carousel, where more technical skiing is required, and into what Boyd says are the course's "signature" middle sections, the precipitous Weasel and Fall Away.
Here is where the beast is tamed. Or not. Racers will hit speeds of 130 or 140 km/h. Their skis will chatter crazily atop the ice; if their metal edges cannot grip and maintain a hard line, or if their bindings pop from torque, racers will shoot off the track like human cannonballs. In which case they'll fly into a safety net. If they're lucky. The alternative is almost too awful to contemplate: A bloodcurdling, bone-snapping crash.
Boyd has survived Weasel and Fall Away many times. But only once has he mastered both sections with the rest of the course, on a February weekend 11 years ago. Conditions were perfect. Clear skies. The sun shone. Fresh powder lay beside the clean-swept track. Boyd came down in two minutes and 10 seconds. Swiss great Peter Muller crashed.
Boyd has free-skied the course hundreds of times since; it still excites him. "I ski it fast," Boyd says. "I love the feeling of high speed and a long, clean turn, and staying ahead of the skis. [Former teammate] Willy Raine described the sensation really well. It's like leaning into a pillow of air."
Today's winner will possess the most clarity, confidence, command. He'll lean furthest into the pillow to a place, Boyd says, where "there's no element of fear."
