The organization there was pretty awful as far as human resources are concerned. My friends and I went to course marshal on Saturday and Sunday. Many of the people in charge are events people, and didn't have a damn clue about anything bike or race related.
Instructions for course marshals were given in a rushed, inconsistent, and often misinformed manner. Many of the volunteers who were course marshals had no clue about biking or racing, fine. But when the people telling them what to do have no clue...there you have issues.
One fellow came up to me and chewed me out because i told some foreigner off for taking a rock off the DH course. He said it was not my place to do so, and to go apologize to the man, as he was a paid professional racer. Yes, it was my place as a course marshal and no, the man in question was not a paid professional racer. If he was he would have known better. You don't touch the course.
The fella who told me off threatened to have me thrown out of the venue. Yea, right.
On a much brighter note, it was awesome to have Peaty stop just past me during training after I cheered him on, turn around and ask how it was going. Another racer whose name I did not catch stopped during training and shot the breeze with me for 10 minutes. Having that sort of interaction with the top athletes in the sport made up for the dumb events staff a hundredfold. I just can't wait until next year.
