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(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Workers prepare for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games at the official freestyle skiing venue at Cypress Mountain in West Vancouver, British Columbia, Monday, Feb. 8, 2010.
WEST VANCOUVER, British Columbia— A clattering helicopter and a rumbling truck dumped more snow on Cypress Mountain, the warm weather-plagued venue where the first Winter Olympic event is just four days away.
Olympic organizers opened parts of the mountain to media for the first time Tuesday, showing off a snow-covered moguls course with big patches of dirt on either side. The snowboard halfpipe remained off limits.
"All in all, I think we are very positive about how things have come together," said Dick Vollet, the Vancouver organizing committee's head of mountain operations. "We are quite happy with where we are given that we are fighting Mother Nature, and sometimes she can be very unforgiving."
The steep slope got a mixed reception from skiers after training.
"Everybody needs to adapt to that course," 2009 World Cup champion Alexandre Bilodeau of Canada said. "It's obviously not the best course we've had this year, and it's not the type of skiing we're used to."
American athlete Bryon Wilson, however, said the course was shaping up well.
"It's a little different to anything we've been on before, but it's soft and it's pretty ripping," he said.
The conditions on Cypress Mountain have been the most dominant concern leading up to the games, which open Friday.
VANOC chief executive officer Jack Furlong described the efforts to get the venue prepared as being organizers' greatest challenge.
Rainfall and the warmest January on record in the region have forced crews to work around the clock to prepare the tracks.
