Zoom

photo: Leanna Rathkelly

Olympian Efforts: Whistler's Other Games — Rubber Down

Given vertical, snow, and tons of things on which to slide down them, it’s not hard to construct an ersatz sliding event on any old ski hill. Whistler goes one better by having its popular Tube Park conveniently — and, frankly, embarrassingly — located next to the bobsled/luge tracks of the Whistler Sliding Centre, one of the venues for the upcoming Olympics. So you can put in an hour (which is what you get when you purchase a ticket) dragging an inflated truck-tire tube up a short hill and racing your friends down the walled channels of the park — inventing additional criteria like most runs in an hour, farthest slide across the flats, most intense collision — and then hump a short way to the Sliding Centre to see how it’s really done. Widening your eyes at the sound of a bobsled rocketing past at nearly 90 mph won’t be enough to earn you a medal in this event; for that you’ll have to get into one yourself without soiling your pants, as folks will be allowed to do post-Olympics.