When racing starts Saturday at the World Para Nordic Skiing Championships at Otway Nordic Centre, the eyes of the world will be watching.
An audience that could number in the millions will be tuning in to the livestream webcasts on their screens, watching 120 athletes compete in cross-country skiing and biathlon at the International Paralympic Committee-sanctioned event.
Kevin Pettersen, chair of the local organizing committee, attended the 2017 world para nordic championships in Finsterau, Germany, and the level of interest was huge.
"In Finsterau they had two million viewers, and that's the exciting thing - we've never had a live broadcast here," said Pettersen. "Having cameras on cross-country ski courses is not very common."
Prince George has never hosted a world championship and the local organizing committee is working with the technical delegates and broadcaster (Playo TV) to ensure it will be all systems go for Saturday.
Seventeen camera locations have been set up on the ski courses and those cameras will be connected by 30,000 feet of cable that's been laid along the trails. Scaffolding will give internet viewers unobstructed views of the course, especially the biathlon range where much of the action is concentrated. Pettersen said drone cameras are forbidden due to the potential risk of one crashing onto the course.
"They'll set it up so we get the same kind of shots as IBU (International Biathlon Union) races with shots right down the firing line and shots on the targets, so that will be pretty cool to see," said Pettersen.
A 16-foot-by-nine-foot screen in the stadium area will display the adjusted times of each athlete during the race so spectators will know where each racer stacks up.
The Canadian Paralympic Committee has the livestreaming rights which will be fed through the website, paralympic.org/canada. Webcasts will also be carried on the CBC Gem app, Canadian Paralympic Committee Facebook page, Radio-Canada Sports app and radio-canada.ca/sports.
Viewers can either catch the events live or watch the replays. Commentary for the webcasts will be in English but the video also will be available raw, without commentary, for translation into the native language of whichever country picks up the feed.
"CBC will be getting the commentated version and the non-commentated version and they will add commentary in French," said Pettersen. "They'll do the interviews in English, the official language of IPC, and then they'll re-do the interview and ask the same questions and get the athlete to respond in their native language. Then they'll package those up for the different countries."
About 60 journalists have applied for press credentials to cover the 10-day event. Close to 120 athletes representing 19 countries will compete.
Pettersen spoke with Sascha Beck, the IPC's broadcast manager, and was told the international body wants to raise its webcasts to an unprecedented level of professionalism to help raise public awareness for the para nordic sports.
"They want this one to hit the next level because that's how they keep broadcasters engaged in continually improving so I think we'll see some good results in terms of what it looks like on live stream," said Pettersen.
The WPNSC combine cross-country skiing and biathlon and in both disciplines there are three race categories - sitting, standing and visually-impaired.
All athletes in each of the three categories compete together, despite their different levels of impairment. The International Paralympic Committee uses a classification system based on range-of-motion limitations and which muscles each athlete can use and assigns a percentage used as a multiplier to determine their final race times. In sprints, which use a hunter start format, the more motion-impaired racers start ahead of the less impaired. The start delays are determined by each individual's assigned classification.
The cold snap the past month has made it chilly for athletes and crews on the course but there is a warming trend on the way. While snow is in the forecast for today with wind chills tonight dipping close to -30 C, the wind is expected to drop for Saturday under sunny skies with a forecast high of -13 C and a low of -22 C. Highs for Sunday and Monday are expected to reach -12 C with lows in the -18 C range and more snow for Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday the forecast high is -6 C.
After virtually no snow until a couple days before Christmas the white stuff is waist-deep now at Otway. The cold and abundant snow has allowed course groomers to prepare deep and hard and stable classic ski tracks, which the athletes like.
"I'm so happy about the snow and to have that cold temperature we had was actually perfect because it really set up the snow nicely," said Pettersen. "You can walk on it and hardly make a dent in it. It's nice dry crisp snow. We're not going to get rain."
John Huybers, president of the host Caledonia Nordic Ski Club, says people should come out and watch, free of charge, the best athletes on the planet race on what rates as a world-class facility at Otway.
"If this competition was held in Germany, there'd be half a million people watching live and we're going to have a thousand people come out," said Huybers.
"I encourage people to come out and see it, because the biathlon viewing area is second to none in the world. You get to see them shoot and climb a hill and you get to see them on a downhill. If you were trying to do that in Europe you'd have to put your lawn chair in place two days before."
A park-and-ride shuttle service will leave twice a day in the morning from the Aquatic Centre on 18th Avenue and two buses will return from Otway twice daily in the afternoon.
The opening ceremony will start tonight at 7 at the Civic Centre. Biathletes will be on the course Saturday for the first races of the WPNSC, the mid-distances events. The women's sitting 10-kilometre race starts at 10 a.m., with the men beginning at 10:55 a.m. The women's standing 10 km race starts at 12:30 p.m., followed by the men's 12.5 km race at 12:50 p.m. The women's 10 km visually-impaired race starts at 2:20 p.m. and the men's 12.5 km race begins at 2:40 p.m.
On Sunday, cross-country starts with the women's five km and men's 7.5 km events.
Cross-country continues on Family Day Monday with the cross-country sprints. Biathlon is on the schedule for Wednesday and Thursday, with cross-country events wrapping up the competition next Saturday and Sunday.
