Lots to report on
Hello!
Lots to report on as the last few races have been a step up. First, Val Gardena: It was an epic and historical weekend for the US team. We put 5 guys in the top 10 and 6 in the top 15. All the US starters in the DH scored points (top 30). It was awesome to have the team ski so well as a group and enjoy the success together.
For me, it was bittersweet. I was 15th, which is nice and solid, but I was expecting more. I had good training runs, was feeling fast and felt like I had good touch on the snow, good feel for carrying speed. On race day I was a bit unlucky with wind, as were some of the other guys. I had also tasted success on this course just last year. The start was lowered to the reserve start, just a few hundred meters down from the regular start, but it took away the one key section giving you speed on the top flat, assuming you nailed it. You pretty much went out of the gate, dropped in your tuck and hoped that your ski tech had hit the wax right. It made the wind a bit more of a factor than usual up there.
That said, I still skied the Ciaslat the best I had to that point, and skied well in most places. Had a bit of a bobble on the bottom that cost me time, but overall it was a solid race.
After that we celebrated a bit out on the town in Val Gardena, then packed up and headed to Paganella for some rest and training, do some Christmas shopping before we headed to Bormio.
Bormio was impressive this year. It was probably the toughest I had seen it any year I have been at the race. They had plenty of snow this year, but for some reason they considered opening the hill to the public for a few days and then slipping it out while setting the gates preparation. It rained on the bottom 4 days before we arrived, which must have been a tough call as to what to do, so they left it until the race started. The course setter also added more swing to the course, making the turns further across the hill in a few sections. It was hard to tell if the purpose was to control the speed (intention to make it safer?) or to test our fitness (made the course even more tiring).
For those of you that don’t know Bormio’s vertical drop is about 3180ft in just over two minutes. There are no long flat sections, so you are constantly turning over bumpy and icy terrain the entire time. The bottom pitch would not normally be extremely difficult, it just comes after your legs have been burned by lactate into a gelatinous heap. Quite a few racers found the fence down there, which is never a good thing.
On race day I made a huge mistake up on top of the course, getting high-sided out of a relatively easy (but high speed) turn. I nearly missed the next gate and was last on the speed trap on the next turn. I kept my act together, which I was happy about in retrospect and skied the bottom solidly, with top 10 and top 15 splits to finish. I ended up 21st, which isn’t incredible, but I took it gladly considering the mistake and my sordid history with Bormio. I had never scored points there.
With that, went home to take a break, rest and get some workouts in, kind of regroup for the rest of the season. Looking forward to Wengen, Kitzbuhel and Garmisch!