Turning the Whistler Olympic Park into the Whistler Paralympic Park was no great feat thanks to an already highly-accessible venue, according to organizers.
Since the Olympic venue was already wheelchair accessible, most of the changes involved scaling everything down to suit the fewer athletes, spectators and media involved with the Paralympic Games, according to Whistler Paralympic Park venue general manager John Aalberg.
"What we've done is just added a little bit - some ramps here and there and added some non-stick surfaces here and there - but we were very accessible during the Olympics as well so it's very slight modification," he said.
More compact areas with a few more ramps and a flatter skiing course are the only real differences between the Whistler Paralympic Park and what the facility looked like for the Olympic Games last month, according to Aalberg.
The slight reconfiguration took about five days to complete starting on the eve of Feb. 28, he said.
The biggest difference between the Olympics and Paralympics may be that instead of three facilities, all sports were merged into one.
During the February Games, the park was home to three venue facilities - a ski jump, cross-country and a biathlon stadium - but for the Paralympic Games, there's one dual-purpose stadium.
"To make it a little more efficient for us during the Paralympics they moved everything to one stadium," said Aalberg.
Aalberg said the facilities were also merged because about 100 of the 150 athletes that will compete at the park are competing in both the biathlon and the cross-country events.
The biathlon shooting range was adjusted to 10 metres rather than the Olympic-sized biathlon range of 50 metres.
The visually impaired shooters use a headset and laser beam to help with aiming. As the laser beam from their rifle approaches the target, a staccato sound transmitted through a headset becomes more solid, allowing them to judge how close they are.
The added ramps were constructed to help 40 wheelchair bound cross-country and biathlon athletes who are competing at the venue.
Since sit-skiers propel themselves across the terrain solely on arm strength, competition course terrain was also adjusted to better suit the athletes.
Aalberg said the 3.75 kilometre cross-country and biathlon sit-skiing course is flatter than the course for visually impaired and standing athletes.
"Obviously they don't use their legs, they sit and use their arms only so it's a flatter, easier course with less hill. They still have some hills but obviously much less," Aalberg said. "So that was quite a lot of change."
Whistler Paralympic Park is now the home of one press tent rather than two, and only one workforce break tent rather than three.
For the Paralympic Games, the park can now accommodate about 6,000 spectators which is about half what the venue could facilitate in February and it takes about half the workforce to run the scaled down venue site.
The only other change Aalberg saw at the park over the last week or so is the added snowfall.
"Now it's more winter, so that's a big transition," he said. "But someone else did that transition for us."
