We are at a time in Ski Cross where there are no byes. Often times it’s just as hard to advance from the round of 32 as it is to be in the top two in the final. That’s why I am pleased to get a 4th place today. I came to Sweden with a banged up knee and really banged up ribs. Starting the race was in question.

Today my skis were running great and I had a couple things go my way up to the final. Kuhn lost his ski in the 1st round to open the door for me. Davey Barr hooked Niederer’s tail at the bottom of the course to open the door for both Schmid and myself. Then Zangerl missed a gate in the semi-final, which put me into 3rd, but then I made an awesome pass on Krauss and Schmid to win the semis.

Then we got into the final and I was fourth into the first corner. I was ready to bide my time and smoke everyone at the bottom because that’s where I was making all my passes. Unfortunately, around the 2nd corner, I was too fast and came up next to Del Bosco. He hit some bumps on the inside and got thrown wide. At that point I had no choice of where to go. I got pinned between the fence and Del Bosco. As you can imagine I ended up on my back again and he went on to get 2nd. I did feel his move was dirty but I can’t be sure. I felt he could have finished his turn and we would have all been on our feet. That’s not how it shook out however. I am still happy with my fourth.

Now I’m looking at a rediculous trip to Japan. Instead of going east we’re going west. So we go Oslo-Frankfurt-L.A. (stay the night in L.A.) – then Tokyo. Our jet lag might be so screwed up that maybe we will be okay when we arrive in Japan. Who knows. I’ll check in again from the orient.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 12:33 pm and is filed under caseypuckett. 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.