Another trip to Lake Placid for me has come and gone. Much like in February, it was a spectacular trip from start to finish full of great racing and inspiring athletes doing what they do best. It’s impossible to come up from North Carolina, take the pictures I try to take and do all the work I try to do without the help of great friends and colleagues along the way.
For starters, thanks to everyone at Art Devlin’s, Wildwood, Delta Blue, Lisa G’s, Dancing Bears, Cake Placid and especially Ashley’s Cafe for all of their service. Great food, great places to stay and great places to hang out with great people make for a great trip!
Mike Groll and the rest of the photographers and media people were all fantastic to work with all weekend. Various people in the media have (to be generous) occasionally have rather rough personalities, but the group in Lake Placid were across the board fun people to be around.
Of course the people with the Lake Placid Sliding Complex (and ORDA) were all great. Jon Lundin and Wendy Townsley, as well as all of the shuttle drivers, the people from Centerplate and everyone else who can help make a full World Cup weekend go round do such an amazing job. Anything I needed from the track all weekend could happen because of the help of Jon or Wendy, so I couldn’t do it without them.
The USBSF couldn’t function, in part, without the incredible work of Amanda Bird. Words can’t do justice the amount of work that Amanda does for the USBSF, between handling press releases, press requests, sponsor obligations and most anything else needed from the organization. Most importantly, this blog wouldn’t function without Amanda’s help from time to time. So thanks to Amanda for all of her hard work.
Finally, of course, there’s the athletes. The people I met this week are nothing short of incredible, and I’m honored to be able to have met as many great athletes as I have over the past two trips up to Lake Placid. Over the last few months I’ve worked hard on getting myself back into better shape, and you’ve all been a very major part of that inspiration.
It’s been a wonderful trip, and I’m already looking forward to the next one. Here are photos from the various days:
Wednesday (Training)
Thursday (Skeleton)
Friday (Skeleton and Bobsled)
Saturday (Four-Man Bobsled)
