Most of you probably don’t know who I am. My job is to show you what it’s like to be a kid trying to become a top ski racer. I am a 13-year-old racer from Aspen, Colorado. I’m a J3 and compete in the Rocky/Central division. Right now I’m just getting into the first couple races of my season. I’m a first year J3 so this year will be a little bit of a challenge to race against the older, bigger kids in my age group. This year I also start to race for USSA points which will get me ready to race FIS races when I’m older. I’m excited for all these new opportunities that will help me prepare for bigger things that will come in the future. I hope I can provide an idea of what it’s like to be a kid, working hard to succeed in the junior ranks.

I began this week out in Winter Park for the Topolino shootout, which consists of three runs of GS and three runs of SL. They take your fastest GS and your fastest SL time and combined them to find an overall winner to represent the USA in Italy. There is a very select group of kids that get to compete at this race. The group mostly consists of second year J3’s (the older kids.) The only way to qualify for the tryouts when you’re my age is to win an event at the J4 Junior Olympics the prior year. Being a first year, I wasn’t expecting to make Topolino, but I knew if I skied my best I could. I had a tough go at the tryouts. My focus wasn’t 100 percent and it showed in my skiing. I had a strong finish for the first year J3’s but we all know that at the end of the day they don’t hand out awards for that. The slalom at the shootouts was very interesting. On my first run, I punched myself in the face and came close to knocking myself out. I have no idea how this happened but it did. I walked away with a headache some crooked teeth and a couple bruises. I only finished one run and I was fifth but after the way I was feeling I say that’s not bad. I may not have skied my best in Winter Park, but I learned a lot and this will help me prepare for next year. I also had some fun off the hill i got a couple of sharpie tattoos and enjoyed my time catching up with friends in winter park.

From Winter Park I moved on to the open age class event in Crested Butte. My first race was a short GS - the opener for all the younger kids. This race gives me a seed for the Junior Olympic qualifiers coming up. My goal was to win one of the races so I would have a first seed for qualifiers, (held in Aspen in two weeks). The format was 2 runs both separate races. On my first run, I had trouble adapting to the soft conditions and wasn’t focused and gave up. I finished fifth. The course was tough because they got three feet of new snow the night before and the conditions were extremely soft. The second run, I got my act together. I was extremely focused I knew I had to win this run. I got into the start and the wind had to be blowing at 30 mph straight up the hill. I knew I had to ski extremely well to win because I was one of the smallest guys out there. I pushed out and just tried to attack this course as much as I could with the soft snow. I ended up in first and I was proud of my finish in the windy and soft conditions. I had fun over this past week and now I start all over again at the 5-day Keystone Smartwool speed series in Colorado.

Have fun and I’ll check in later from Keystone.

Bobby

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 11:45 am and is filed under bobbymoyer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.