February 22, 2010 (Whistler, BC) – Canada’s George Grey of Rossland, BC logged a personal best
“What we did today is probably going to stay in the history books for some time. Three in the top 10 and phenomenally close to the lead….. What a day, that’s all I can say,” said Grey standing in the sunshine and beaming after Saturday’s race.
“We are ecstatic…. if anyone’s going to be crying today, it’s going to be tears of joy. We are aiming high for the medals, but we are the underdogs, and what we did today is historic and it felt great, and I couldn’t have asked for more.”
Grey acknowledged his entire team as motivators, and gave them a share of the credit: “Today showed that, you know, it’s not just one guy… it’s four of us. …three [Canadians] in the top 10 – no other team did that today.”
He elaborated on the Canadian team dynamic and how large a role the program’s emphasis on camaraderie plays in and out of competition: “It helps to have your team around you, because, like I’ve said to others, we train together, we race together, we do time trials and intensity and strength workouts together. We know when one of our team mates pulls up beside us and if we’re having a moment of weakness, you jump on their tails – we know we can ski with them, so it helps.”
“We ski and live together for six months of the year, and so we feed off each other, and it worked out well today,” he added.
The 30-year-old was extremely pleased with his race, but admitted he ran into difficulties in the first half during the 15km classic portion of the competition. He managed to dig deep and pull it back together, however, and continued skiing strong. “… I got some energy back, and then I just put together a solid skate race.” He said he skied smart, “Staying behind people so I could get some draft, not trying to be on my own getting too much wind drag or anything, and then save energy for the last 5k and it worked out.”
Grey admitted he didn’t approach the race with a set strategy: “This morning I woke up and said: ‘Forget strategy.’ Because so much can change in these races, I just said: ‘Let’s go and race in front of a home crowd and do what I can.’” The tactic obviously worked well for the British-born skier.
His personal best eighth place was not only the high point of his 2010 Games experience so far: “This is the highlight of my career today. Yeah, that was my best race I’ve ever put together.”
The Olympics are far from over for Grey and the Canadian team, however. The four-man squad will put their teamwork to the ultimate test when they compete in the 4x10km relay on Wednesday, February 24.
“The Team Relay is an interesting beast. It can go great, it can go bad. You can have strong teams who put together a bad day. We’re optimistic, we know we can do it, but we also are realistic and things can go wrong. So we just have to be careful and race with a vision that we can get on the podium,” said a philosophical Grey.