Big Air in Livingo

The only thing we had on the itinerary for the last day was the men’s big air snowboarding gold medal competition in Livingo in the evening. Almost everyone slept in until the late morning. There were a few errands to be run, so one car headed into the city, while the other five of us stayed behind at the house. Sam had his morning constitutional around the grounds while Justin and I played pool. Adam continued to explore the house’s architecture while Nevada rustled up some breakfast.

The castle grounds

As luck would have it, Joe got stuck behind the Vice President’s motorcade and had to wait for a roadblock to clear before he could return. We ended up leaving the house around 3:00 PM to head to the park and ride for the snowboarding. Along the way, we made a stop for gas and some lunch groceries, and, accounting for the traffic, arrived at the park and ride a half hour or so before the event was supposed to start. This newly constructed park and ride lot was also in state of partial readiness, with some poor volunteer with garden rake trying to smooth the ruts in the soft gravel.

Big Air in Livingo

Unfortunately, the shuttle bus ride from the park and ride to the venue ended up taking over an hour and a half, rather than the hour planned, due to a slow chauffeur driving the bus in front of us. By the time we made it to the venue (and through security), the event was two thirds of the way through. We did, however, get to see the third and final run of each snowboarder competing in the event, including Ollie Martin, the US snowboarder who finished fourth, with a broken arm.

Medal ceremony

We took our time heading back to the shuttle bus after the medal ceremony was over, and got to see some of the women practicing their jumps before eventually getting kicked out. Several folks also got to visit the official merch store, and Tanner snagged the hotdog he had been looking for all week. We took several group pictures in front of the Olympic rings and Livingo snow sculpture and met one of the medical support staff members from team USA in the process.

Livingo fan central

On the way home, the bus, though quicker, was very hot. Three team Netherlands personnel were sitting in front of us and started hollering at the bus driving, asking him to “turn on the air co.” After getting no response for a while, one of them yelled, “This is the winter games, not the summer games!” Later we saw him heckling the driver after getting off the bus. Justin attempted to climb a snow covered embankment and was about to give up when one of the guys came behind them and said, “Okay, guys. Let’s do this.”

After dropping Joe off at his vehicle so that he could continue on to Switzerland, we made one final stop at McDonalds on the way home. This one in particular was open until 2:00 AM and, despite the late hour, was filled with young people hanging out. We enjoyed our native McFlurrys and cheeseburgers and then continued back to the AirBnB. Unfortunately, this last night was over the 2:00 AM over/under.