first race of the season

We ran a slalom race today at Copper Mountain in Colorado as part of the Ski Spectacular disabled ski week.

I took third place behind Sean Rose of Great Britain and surprise winner Josh Dueck of Canada. I suppose Josh wasn't a surprise to anyone who watched him ski last season — he just kept getting better and better, and it was only a matter of time before he "put two together," as we say.

It worries me a little that I was the top American, because I wasn't all that fast despite my podium finish; I was six seconds behind Josh and two behind Sean. I know how fast my teammates Tyler Walker and Chris Devlin-Young have been in training (namely, faster than me), but Tyler had a lackluster day, finishing just behind me, and Chris skied out in the second run after placing second in the morning run. I predict they'll be back in form tomorrow for the giant slalom, an event that I've not felt very good in during recent training.

finally...

USSA got around to putting out a press release about Friday's GS in Breckenridge. Our head coach Ray had some nice things to say about me, and they put a very unflattering photo of me at the top. I like these better, althought I'm still making the same weird constipated face in the action shot. You can see and download these photos and others here.

sometimes you win by not losing

I managed a win in today's GS, even though I skied better yesterday. A mistake in the first run left me in third place, two seconds behind Tyler and one behind Nick after CDY and Gerald both crashed. My second run was solid but I didn't think it'd be enough to move me up to first or second. I didn't count on both of my remaining teammates crashing, giving me my second career Nor-Am win.

Here are some links to a press release and photos from yesterday's slalom. Both of those sites should have updates for today's race pretty soon.