Standard-Examiner readers were invited to share their favorite 2002 Winter Olympic memories:
Thank you for the opportunity to share my memories of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. What an amazing experience it was!
My name is Dave Weaver, I live in Layton. Fortunately, I worked for Autoliv, who was a corporate sponsor of the Olympics, and had a liberal policy in support of their volunteers. My experience was at Snowbasin as the Venue Accreditation Office Manager. I worked 9 of the 10 days the venue was active.
Our office was responsible for correctly issuing the area access badges for all venue personnel. Considering the Olympics were held just a few short months the September 11th attacks, proper security measures were paramount to the safety of the venue.
One of my fondest memories dealt with a coach from the Norwegian Men's Downhill Team. While I was issuing his area badge and credentials, we had an interesting conversation about the venue, the local culture, the hotel he and his racers were staying at, and his English language skills. He thanked me and was on his way.
A couple of days later he came back into our office/trailer with a complaint. He was having a very difficult time obtaining his racer's training videos and was fearful his country would not be successful in competition without them. We joked back and forth about training runs versus the actual race and how the American racers were going to blow the Norwegians away so why pursue the training videos. We had a good laugh.
In the true spirit of the Olympic volunteer I took him to the venue media center where we found the individual responsible for distributing the training run videos. We shook hands and I wished him good luck against the superior American racers, another good laugh.
As it turned out, Norway placed 2 racers in the top 4 spots; Lasse Kjus won silver and Kjetil Andre Aamodt won 4th. The day after the Downhill competition was complete the coach came back to our trailer and gave me a Norwegian Downhill Olympic pin and thanked me for my help and support. As it turns out the American Downhillers placed 16th, 27th, and 29th places which is very respectable.
Our trailer was outside the boundaries of the venue so we had to go through the security check point any time we had to go into the venue. I remember our crew having to wait for the best time (shortest lines) to get through security in order to go to the volunteer dining tent.
I remember the early morning arrivals, like 3:30 AM, at the Park and Ride near Trappers Loop. Our office/trailer had to be open for business at 4:00 AM.
I remember seeing the totally exhausted volunteers, caring their skis & poles onto the bus at the end of a day of grooming the sloops. I thought to myself "man, I'm sure glad I can't ski."
The other day I pulled out my Olympic souvenir wrist watch along with my pins, clothing, photos, books and other items and I was flooded with very fond memories. What a great experience.
Dave Weaver
Layton
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