Author:  Frances Mitchell, sister of Shelley-Ann Brown, bobsledder

We arrived in Whistler after a scenic ride from Vancouver.  It was still my kind of weather although I was frightened into believing that it was freezing at the top of the mountain.  I dressed myself and my poor little son Andre as though we were ready to fight a war with the cold.  It turns out that it wasn't that bad at all, so we dressed down accordingly.

Be still my heart!!  I started getting ready for the race and all of a sudden, I began to feel really, really nervous.  I couldn't believe it.  I had to tell myself to inhale, exhale, breathe in, breathe out.  Although my brother Wendell was nervous too, he was doing a pretty good job of hiding it and my mother... well, you can imagine!  It's a good thing that we had to walk through Whistler Village to get to the Gondola, pass through some serious security then take a bus to get partway to the Sliding Centre, and yet another bus to get to the top of the hill.  It is a very high starting point for the race but by the time I got there, I felt a little better and was ready to watch with a slower heart rate.

It's hard to imagine how fast these ladies are driving: you have to be at the track to see and hear the sounds to really understand.  So I got nervous again.  After their first run, Shelley-Ann and Helen were in 5th place, after the second run, they are in 4th place - do you see the trend?  They're moving up - the race is close and every hundreth of a second counts so let's hope for a great day today.

Didn't Shelley-Ann and Helen look happy yesterday after the second run - can you imagine how they will look on the podium?  We're all looking forward to tonight in hopes that they will be on the podium.  In the meantime, I hope when I start getting dressed today my heart will be still.