world championships, days 2 through 4

Here's the rundown of my races so far:

GS (Feb. 21): About the worst possible result: I fell on the fourth gate of the course and slid past the next gate, and my whole race day was over by mid-morning.

I tried to make the best of it — had some lunch and then took the gondola early back to the hotel, where I ran into Kim Joines from the Canadian team, whose day had also come to an early end. She told me about the Korean-style spa inside our hotel; I hadn't even known it existed. Sure enough, below the lobby was a pretty opulent tiled set of rooms. One was a locker room and one a sort of powder room just like you'd find in a posh American health club. The third room had showers on each side — regular Western stand-up showers on the right, and traditional Korean sit-down showers on the left, with a small wooden stool to sit on and a wooden bucket to lather up with. You have to take a shower first and take all your clothes off before proceeding to the middle of the room, where there is a big hot tub with a fountain of vertical jets in the middle. I had a nice soak and then moved to the back wall, where there were two more tubs without jets: one with even hotter water and one quite cold. (The thermometer said 19 degrees C, which works out to about 66 Fahrenheit.) (10 minutes later: I just got into a conversation with Erik Leirfallom and Marcel Kuonen about why 66 degrees feels so much colder in water than in air. The short version of the answer we came up with is "specific heat capacity.") Anyway, I took my cue from the Korean guy who came in while I was in the "warm" tub and tried plunging from the hot to the cold and back again. It was pretty exhilarating, and I went back to my room refreshed.

Feb. 22 was a day off. I did some super G training in the morning and then a few of us had lunch at the Top of the Top, the revolving restaurant at the top of the ski area.

Super combined (Feb. 23): Actually, this might have been worse than the GS. I finished the super G portion with no major mistakes, but my run was absolutely terrible. I wasn't looking for speed anywhere, didn't take any chances, and just generally skied like a wuss the whole way down. Resolved to make amends, I skied a somewhat decent slalom run and finished the race in 16th place.

Super-G: This was a lot better, despite the 20th place finish. I really went for it, skied great all the way up to a point about three quarters of the way down the course, where I misjudged the entry to a crucial turn and got so incredibly late that I barely made about four consecutive gates. I'm sure I lost two or three seconds here, but only finished five seconds out of the lead, meaning I skied well most of the way down. This was a tight race in my class, won by Shannon Dallas of Australia.

european world cup wrap-up

You know what has been the best part of my day over the past week? The three seconds after I cross the finish line and before I see my time. Things are just not feeling right for me in the technical events, slalom and GS. We raced two of each here in Queyras, France, and tomorrow we drive back to Munich, then fly home to the States on Monday. I finished both giant slaloms, but I never felt like I was skiing cleanly except on the flattest parts of the course, and I finished each run over five seconds behind the leader. I thought the slaloms would go better, but instead they went worse: each day, I finished the first run outside the top 15, then resolved to get more aggressive for the second run but skied out and failed to finish.

Today has been a good off day. We hung out at the L'Eldorado Restaurant adjoining our hotel and watched Lindsey Vonn (nee Kildow) win the classic women's downhill at Cortina D'Ampezzo, Italy. That was just a warm-up for the even more classic men's downhill in Kitzbuehel, Austria, the Hahnenkamm, which Bode almost managed to win — he tied for second behind Switzerland's Dider Cuche — despite making the majority of one turn with both skis off the ground, running along a safety fence, a good meter above the snow! We watched in horror as the second racer on course, our countryman (and for some of us, good friend) Scott Macartney, crashed badly off the final jump of the notorious Streif course. Scotty Mac, who was celebrating his 30th birthday today, landed so hard on his head that he broke his helmet in half and then slid, unconscious, across the finish line. Ironically, he still managed to finish in 33rd place — just 0.16 seconds away from scoring World Cup points. The mood in the finish area looked somber on TV as medics airlifted the still-unconscious Macartney to a hospital in Innsbruck. We all hope he suffered no more than a concussion and that he gets back on his feet again soon.

When I get back to the States, M. and I will spend two nights at my place in Winter Park before heading to the X Games in Aspen to begin training for the Mono Skier X competition.

abtenau, days 2-5

The less said about Tuesday's GS race, the better. All of our team finished the race, and yet not one American ended up on the podium. I had a really mediocre run, followed by a run that was going better until I hip checked on the flats, dumping all my speed. I popped right back up and kept going to the finish, but I was way off the mark, finishing 12th. As usual, Martin Braxenthaler of Germany was the winner in my class.

The last three days have been a different story — well, not for Martin, who's continued to win every day, but for us Americans. We had three super-combineds, the newest event on the disabled World Cup circuit. Each race consists of one run of super G and one run of slalom in a single day; the winner is the one with the fastest combined time. It's a fun race because it allows the speed specialists to compete against the more technical skiers in a sort of jack-of-all-trades battle. For more about combined races, see this Wikipedia article (which I wrote a lot of).

ANYway, my teammate CDY did extremely well, winning the super G portion of all three races — which were also scored independently as super G's, so he's now won three World Cups this season. Slalom is not his specialty, but he managed to do well enough in the slalom legs to take 2nd, 5th, and 3rd in the super combis. As for me, I am struggling with super G right now. I feel great during my runs, but when I look at my time I always seem to be blindsided by how slow I am. Slalom is a little better...

I was 5th, 13th, and 10th in the super Gs. I didn't finish the slalom portion the first day, but ended up 9th overall in yesterday's race and 8th in today's. Complete results can be found here, and you can read some U.S. Ski Team press releases here.

Tomorrow, we're off to Queyras, France — a 10-hour drive — for more World Cup action.

tough day of slalom

Today was the first World Cup race of the season, a slalom in Abtenau, Austria. I was the only sitting male finisher from the U.S. today, in 8th place in race won by Austria's Harry Eder. The race was held in weather that ranged from mist to pouring rain... it was pretty lame. The organizers put chemicals in the snow to keep it firm and try to create a consistent surface, but large holes developed in two places on the first run, taking out a large percentage of the male sitting skiers, who run last in slalom. I made it through with a solid but unambitious run. On the second run I charged a bit more, but when I reached the final pitch, where big ruts had again developed, I went for quite a rodeo ride. I hung on though, and by finishing cleanly I moved up a few positions, from 11th to 8th. Not the best slalom finish I could have hoped for — but not the worst, either. Only one other American guy, Brad, finished both runs (he was 9th in the standing class). In the women's race, Jonezy took a respectable third place among the standing skiers, and Laurie turned it up, winning the sitskier category the way we used to expect from her every day, regardless of the discipline.

Complete results can be viewed here, on the IPC website.

u.s. nationals wrap-up

Today was the fourth and final day of official competition here at the U.S. Disabled Alpine Championships in Waterville Valley, N.H. For me, it was a pretty weak ending to a pretty strong season. I had been hoping to come away with my first national title but ended up with only a 5th-place finish in GS and a DNF in slalom. (Because Waterville's race hill is not homologated for speed events, this was the first U.S. nationals not to include a super G or a downhill.) In addition to the two official "championship" races, we raced another GS and slalom that counted as regular Nor-Am races. Those didn't go much better for me; I didn't finish the GS and managed 3rd in the slalom.

Tomorrow should be interesting... they set aside some of the prize money provided by the event's title sponsor, The Hartford, for the winners of a head-to-head, pro-style disabled race, similar to the annual World Disabled Invitational race at the Wells Fargo Bank Cup in Winter Park.

Zoncolan results

Here I am, a week after writing my last blog post and I haven't even been able to post it yet. I'm now in another metal tube, heading from Italy back to Colorado, only this time for some reason we're heading much farther north than usual, up over Greenland. I suppose, barring any unforeseen difficulties, I'll be able to post this tonight when I get home to Winter Park.

It's been a worthwhile trip. We drove about four hours from Munich down to Arta Terme, Italy, which is tucked up in the Dolomites in the northeastern corner of the country, very close to both the Austrian and Slovenian borders. We had two days to ski the race hill and settle into our hotel before the first race, which was a slalom on Monday.

That morning I felt really great, ready to turn in a good performance... maybe that should've been my first clue that things weren't going to go my way. As soon as I got onto the course for the first run, things felt weird. The snow outside of the race course had been really soft, starting to turn slushy by 9 or 10 a.m.; on course, it was a different story. After sliding around on the first few gates, I started to find a rhythm on the next few — only to lean in badly on the entry to the first hairpin and slide off-course. After maybe 15 seconds of racing, my day was over. Even worse, in the second run all three of my male monoskier teammates went down and out as well.

I finished the GS the next day, and while at the time I was pretty disappointed with my 12th-place finish, I think finishing two solid runs built up my confidence a bit. It was also pretty encouraging to see Gerald and CDY have better races, finishing 6th and 7th. On the morning of the final race, a super G, I didn't have much motivation: I hadn't had a decent finish yet in Italy, the course didn't seem well-suited to me, and my warm-up runs just felt off. Before the start I told Nick, "If I have any success today, it will be a fluke." I didn't make any major mistakes in my run, and got to the bottom having thoroughly enjoyed it. It's nice when ski racing is actually FUN, even if "fun" doesn't always correlate well with "successful." Somehow, though, I crossed the line in second place, and only three more skiers who came down after me were able to beat me. Suddenly I had my first top-5 World Cup finish of the season, in the last World Cup race of the season. Not only that, CDY gave our men's monoskiing team its only podium of the season, finishing third.

For the U.S. Ski Team's press release on the races, click here. For complete results, go here.

oh dear

I just realized that I never wrote anything about the super G's earlier this week here in Winter Park. See, I had written this nice long post but then Safari took a safari and crashed. Anyway, I was really happy with my run the first day and ended up second, a couple seconds behind the Australian speed specialist Shannon Dallas. The next day, though, a small mistake cost me big-time and I ended up in fifth place — my first non-podium finish of the Nor-Am season. D'oh!

Results from all the Nor-Ams are finally posted here.

from the x games athlete lounge tent

...which has free wi-fi, naturally, as well as many diversions and much free food.

I guess I am now officially an Xtreme Athlete, having competed in my first X Games and made it to the semifinals. Now it's time to go party like an Xtreme Athlete.

Tune in to ESPN tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon beginning at 2 p.m. ET and maybe you'll catch me racing, although they might only show the finals. I wish I could be more specific about the time of the broadcast, but alas...

If you want to cheat and peek at the results now, head over here for the results and here for the full story.

spokane, wash.

Racing in Kimberley finished up today with a slalom. I had two solid runs (my second run was fifth-fastest) and finished eighth — not my best result, but I was satisfied with my performance. As soon as we got off the hill, five out of the six U.S. monoskiers on the trip loaded into a van to drive down to Spokane and catch a flight to Denver for the X Games.

Halfway there, though, we got a phone call: our 6 p.m. flight out of Spokane had been cancelled, and we would be stuck here for at least the next 12 hours. We considered our options and decided to take our rescheduled 6 a.m. flight to Denver tomorrow, then hop on a United flight directly to Aspen. If all goes as planned, we should make it into Aspen around 10:55 a.m., just in time to get on snow around 1:00 for the preliminary rounds of the monoskier X competition. Fingers crossed, I'm going to try and get some sleep...

Today's results are here.

aspen world cup wrap-up

I'm on an Alaska Airlines flight from Denver to Seattle; from there I'll transfer to Spokane, where we'll all pile into rented minivans and drive four hours or so up to the faux-Austrian village of Kimberley, British Columbia. We'll get to sleep in tomorrow and perhaps freeski a bit in the afternoon, and then we have three more days of World Cup racing — a super G on Wednesday, a giant slalom Thursday, and a slalom Friday. Immediately after the slalom, five of the team's six monoskiers will hightail it back to Spokane, fly back to Denver, and drive up to Aspen (which we just left last night) for the X Games' Monoskier X event on Saturday afternoon. It seems a little illogical to go to so much effort to compete in a crazy, somewhat dangerous race, but what the hell. You only live once.

Sorry I've neglected to post the results of the later Aspen World Cups... I'll give you the rundown of the last four days:

Tuesday, GS #1: I put together two solid — but not stellar — runs, finishing as the top American (seventh place) in a race that features a slew of DNFs (did not finish) thanks to a difficult hill and variable snow conditions. Germany's Martin Braxenthaler wins the men's sitting category handily, repeating his feat from both super G's.

Wednesday, GS #2: The rest of the field starts to figure out the hill — but not the Americans. I fail to finish the first run after misjudging a big knoll in the middle of the course. In the afternoon I join a posse of fellow DNFs (Gerald, Ricci, CDY, and two Italians) to explore the rest of Aspen Mountain. It is Gay & Lesbian Ski Week in Aspen, and we manage to catch some of an event called "The Drag Race," which features costumed (though not necessarily all cross-dressing) participants showing off their style on skis and snowboards before a panel of judges. We see four men dressed as poodles, a female "priest" performing a same-sex mock matrimony, and a close-to-seven-foot snowboarding queen who we hear won the event last year. Then I ride the gondola to the top of the mountain with a screenwriter who wrote Air Force One and who uses his cell phone in the gondola to reschedule his appointment with his personal trainer. At the top, we take pictures of each other and, following the Italians' sensible lead, order beers and drink them on the mountaintop lodge's sun-drenched terrace.

Meanwhile, Braxi wins again, and Nick has the Americans' best (and only) male monoskier finish in seventh place.

Thursday, slalom #1: This is the event where it seems like I could be starting to become a contender, but I make a major mistake in each of the two runs. Still, it's good enough for another seventh-place finish — just behind Gerald, who has a stellar second run. Braxi wins his fifth straight race, although Austria's Jürgen Egle is close behind.

Friday, slalom #2: I go down in the first run but finish the course. Starting the second run in third-to-last place, I have my best run of the week. Only four skiers are faster than me that run, but I was so far behind in the first run that it doesn't matter — I still finish at the back of the pack. Still, my final race run of the Aspen series is encouraging, giving me a morale boost going into the Canadian races, not to mention valuable World Cup points. I now stand in fourteenth place in the season-long overall standings (PDF), the top American in my category so far.

Better yet, Jürgen wins the race, finally knocking Braxi to the second step of the podium.

For full race results, click here. For the full text of the USSA press releases, head over here.

huntsman cup wrapup

Writing this from Park City, Utah, where we just finished up three days of racing at the annual Huntsman Cup. I didn't manage a win but did land on the podium every day, making it five straight this season. I'm happy to be skiing so consistently although I'll admit I was a little disappointed not to finish better than third in today's slalom. Rather than try to recap all the races for you, for now I'll just post links to the relevant press releases and result lists.

GS 1 (Fri. 1/5): release | results
GS 2 (Sat. 1/6): release | results
SL (Sun. 1/7): release | results