From the comfort and lively atmosphere of the beer hall at the surprisingly awesome LiveCity Down Town venue, I sat glued to a number of big screens as the ladies through themselves down the bumpy hill in the wind and driving rain up at Cypress Mountain.

While it’s not ideal, an Olympic silver medal is still an amazing achievement and one that all Canadians, and all of Canada are celebrating today.

This evening sees the Men’s Final get underway at 5:30pm (PST) with Canadian-born Aussie and 2006 Olympic champion Dale Begg-Smith (below) taking to the hill. I can’t wait!

Competing in drastically better conditions than the women last night, Canadian Alexandre Bilodeau rose to the occasion and stole the top podium position from the Aussie with a flawless run that resulted in him becoming the first ever Canadian to win an Olympic gold medal on Canadian soil.

Try as he might, Dale Begg-Smith’s equally impressive final run, which featured a back puck/pike with position and a 720 off-axis dspin, wasn’t enough to secure his second Olympic gold in as many attempts.

“I skied the way I wanted to ski, and that’s all I can control,” said Begg Smith.

“There was a lot of good runs today, and it just depends on the day.”

“I think it’s great that Canada won gold and the crowd was really happy with it, and they went crazy.”

“We’re all here to put on a show and I think they enjoyed what they saw.”

Source: foxsports.com.au

I’m so glad I was able to catch the event! Needless to say I left the Atlantic Canada House on Granville Island with a permanent grin etched on my dial from ear to ear.

If you haven’t heard about it already, Canadian-born Aussie (what a fantastic combination) Dale Begg-Smith turned on a flawless performance in the Men’s Mogul competition last night to capture Australia’s first medal in the Torino games. I was lucky enough to watch the final from start to finish and after seeing some pretty awesome aerials and skiing by the other medalists I was a little skeptical as to how Dale, who was the last one flung down the hill, was going to go. But in true Aussie style he came through with the goods and gave us all the opportunity to see, probably for the only time this games, the Southern Cross hoisted up above all other nations in Torino’s town square.

A quick scan of news articles this morning regarding Dale’s efforts have revealed that the poor fella’s efforts have been well and truly overshadowed by his life away from the mountains. It seems he’s a self-made IT millionaire dealing in online advertising. As the story goes, he’s made his millions and financed his Olympic campaign through pop-up spam advertising which, annoying in nature, probably accounts for why there is so much hoo-ha going on right now.

Anyhow… with all the excitement I’m dead set pumped about heading up to Cypress Mountain tonight with all the gang for my first “night snowboarding” experience. Yeeha!