A decisive move, one that I'm sure will be appreciated by the competitors, but one that has NBC executives organizing a ski jumping contest from the roof of 30 Rock down into the street below.
When we (TAG Heuer) were at Pissler for World Cup, the typical day was:
1. Get up on the hill before dawn.
2. Get ready for a 10:30 start
3. Delay an hour due to fog
4. Delay another hour due to fog
5. Delay another hour due to fog
6. Finally give up around 13:00
This drove the athletes bananas. Downhillers are an edgy bunch anyway, but milling around up in the start for 4 hours was like being in a cage with lions every day. When school was declared out for the day, they'd go pouring out of the start en masse, like a 50-racer skiercross. I remember AJ Kitt and Kristian Ghedina doing helicopters off the Hot Air jump on their 223 cm race skis.
Hot Air no longer exists, as the course has been re-routed to allow for a slalom course and for a women's course to join the men's at the bottom. Hot Air was in between Boyd's Bump and Murr's Hop, and you can still see the breakover to the right of the tree island in the above photo.
Anyhow, good call by those guys, because now nobody (including The Weasels and Swiss Timing) has to get ready to race and then sit there all day in the pouring rain. At least until Monday.
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