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Olympic organizers ready to start hiring

Sliding and Nordic centres will hire at October job fair

Like to work outside? Love the idea of helping Canadian athletes go for gold? Then Olympic officials have just the jobs for you.

Both the Nordic centre in the Callaghan Valley and the Whistler Sliding Centre are looking to hire venue workers now and Olympic officials plan to hold a job fair for the positions this month.

“(Applicants) need to be adventuresome and reliable, of course,” said Craig Lehto, director of sliding sports for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Games.

“You (will) also have a big impact on the athletes and their successes, so I think that makes it very attractive, in my experience.

“It is really a team effort. These are small sports and the effort is very intimate to make sure it all works well for our national team.”

The sliding centre on Blackcomb is looking to hire six to eight people on a seasonal basis.

As there are only four sliding tracks in North America it’s not expected that applicants will have experience, said Lehto.

“We will do a lot of training with them and get them involved with a very unique and different type of work,” he said.

The jobs will be labour intensive and for the most part involve working outside. Workers will learn how to create perfect sliding ice and spend a considerable amount of their time standing on it, said Lehto.

The track will be up and running this winter for top athletes who will be working with international sport federations to make sure it meets specifications. The Canadian national team will also get to practice on it, with a training camp planned for March 2008.

Over the summer the sliding centre may be open to the public for viewing.

The first test events will be held in the 2008-09 season with a bobsled and skeleton event running in the first week of February 2009, and a luge event running from Feb 16 to 22.

The Nordic centre opens to the public in December for cross-country skiing.

“We are hiring staff and we want… the local community to have an opportunity to be part of what we are doing at the venue,” said John Aalberg, director of Nordic sports for VANOC.

The Nordic centre will need lift attendants for the ski jumps, groomers, ski patrol, snow making technicians and other safety maintenance personnel. In all about 20 people will be hired, with nine of those positions being full-time.

“They will be working on the ski jump hill, which is basically the only active ski jump hill in Canada, at least in terms of the large ski hill,” said Aalberg.

“And there are going to be a lot of events this winter so the staff will be part of managing and organizing and operating the events.”

The Canadian National Championships/North American Juniors Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined will be held in the Callaghan from Jan 2 to 5, 2008, a B.C. Cup Cross Country event will be Jan 19 and 20, the FIS Cup Ski Jumping will be held Feb. 27 and 28, the Continental Cup Ski Jumping will be Feb. 29 to March 2, the Canadian National Championships Cross Country will be March 16 to 23 and the Canadian National Championships Biathlon will be March 25 and 30.

There will also likely be smaller local events.

Working at these events, said Aalberg, will allow VANOC staff, old and new, to perfect the runs and tracks needed by athletes at an international level ahead of the Games.

“We want to test out what we call the field of play to know exactly how to prepare the ski jump hill, how do we groom the trails for the quality that is required for these events,” he said.

“So we will be training the staff about how to prepare to an international level and that will take a couple of years.   So we will start with domestic events then in the next year everyone will be part of the big international World Cup events and we will be ready.”

This winter there will be about 30 kilometres of track available for skiers. It will range from beginner to expert as skiers tackle the competition trails, which make up about half of the available tracks.

  There will also be five kilometers of lit trails for night skiing.

Aalberg said officials are still working on the ticketing for public skiing but it’s likely it will be about the same price as Lost Lake, where an adult pays $15 to ski for the day on the 32-kilometres of trails.

The Callaghan day lodge is not constructed yet but washrooms, ski rentals and simple food service will be available at the permanent stadium buildings at the site.

VANOC is looking for people to take on the food service and ski rental opportunities.

Four new state-of-the-art Piston Bully groomers will also be placed at the Callaghan and, said Aalberg, the intention is to leave those behind after the Games as a legacy.

“The trails are for everyone,” he said adding that with a great year of snow expected he hopes to be one of the first to get out and enjoy one of Whistler’s most beautiful valleys.

“I can’t wait.”