Justine Dufour-Lapointe (CAN) celebrates winning gold in ladies’ moguls finals at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.

Despite today (or yesterday, in actuality) being the first “official” day of competition here at the Olympics, it was everyone’s sixth day on the ground and fifth day photographing things. I think it’s safe to say that we’re all starting to feel that Olympics burn. Four to five hours of sleep per night (if you’re lucky), coupled with time for only one substantial meal a day makes even simple tasks like walking up shuttle bus stairs a chore. Did you know that you can get blisters atop existing blisters from the previous day on your feet? Yep, it’s true.

Yesterday’s assignment board put me back at ladies moguls, where I shot the second round of qualifying, as well as the final medal round (which didn’t start until 11pm to put us on prime time television in Europe). One cool thing about photographing young, female athletes is that they’re very animated and less stoic than, say, an NFL football player would be. I can’t say that I’ve ever had an NFL guy mug for my camera!

Norway’s Hedvig Wessel is all smiles as she spots me photographing her from a couple of feet away. I can’t say too many athletes back home would be as interactive with photographers.

The smiles ended after this happened, though. Ouch! Sorry, Hedvig!

A general view of the course with some pretty mountain sunset light.

This sport is great to photograph from a lower position in the center of the course because, when the skiers jump, it’s like photographing them on a white seamless in a studio! Here, team USA’s Heather McPhie gives it her all.

Justine Dufour-Lapointe (CAN) celebrates winning gold, Chloe Dufour-Lapointe (CAN) wins silver, and Hannah Kearney (USA) wins bronze during the ladies’ moguls finals at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.

Justine was quite pleased with her gold!

Guy’s Russian Word of the Day is, “?????? ?????, ” pronounced, “Dobre vische,” which means, “Good evening.” I’m pretty sure the security guy said that as he boarded our bus at 2am to scan our credentials as we arrived back at the media center.