Day 4 - February 11

Work Day

Today was our first day of work. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to bring cameras into the venue. It's a shame since we get to see so many famous Figure Skaters and Short Track Speed Skaters. We hope to be able to sneak one in at some point. Update: We were able to sneak in the camera so we have some shots of us working hard. Coming Soon...

Our job is at the practice venue for Short Track Speed Skating and Figure Skating. Our jobs are as Field of Play Assistants for Short Track. Specifically, we assist in maintaining the ice for the skaters (i.e., moving the pads around the Zamboni door, clearing the ice left after the Zamboni is finished, squeeging excess water, etc.). However, we spend most of our time filling 5 gallon buckets of water and handing them to the skaters. In Short Track, the skaters like the curves to be wet so they pour buckets of water and squeegee them around. Each country tends to like the ice conditions slightly different so we go from extremes like the US (about 40 gallons per practice session) to Italy (about 120 gallons per practice session). We are getting quite a workout lifting all those buckets over the higher-than-normal dasher boards (the hockey boards around an ice skating rink).

Some of the famous skaters that we've seen to-date:

• Michelle Kwan (very cool when she performs a triple jump three feet from where you are standing)
• Sasha Cohen
• Sarah Hughes
• Maria Butyrskaya
• Yoshi Onda
• Fumie Suguri
• Elvis Stojko
• Michael Weiss
• Alexi Yagudin
• Jamie Sale and David Pelletier
• Shen and Zhao
• Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz
• Scott Hamilton
• Sandra Bezic
• Apolo Anton Ono (LaTrece even got to see him in his underwear in the hallway! She says that he wears "tighty whiteys". Thanks to Andrew for pointing out the fact that they might not be "tidy" anymore...)
• Pretty much every Short Track Speed Skater in the Olympics...

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