GS in kimberley

Booooo. I made a big mistake on the top, flat section of my first run in today's giant slalom, and then a few gates later I went down, making a foolish mistake by leaning into a turn on the steepest part of the course.... DNF.

Slalom tomorrow... one more shot at a decent result.

World Cup super G's in aspen

Well, I can't really say that today went how I was hoping. I made a really unacceptable line mistake in the first run that led to me blowing out of the course and not finishing the first race. In the afternoon, I skied a decent line but was just plain slow... I finished tenth. Perhaps the worse news was for the U.S. team in general: Laurie was the only one on the podium in either race, and in the second one my finish represented our team's top placing in the men's sitting class... not a good start to the season.

To make matters worse, I was just informed that I've been fined €100 by the IPC for "failing to report to the yellow-flag zone" after blowing out of the course... maybe tomorrow I'll explain what that means. Maybe then I'll have some good news to report as well.

USSA press release here
Official results here and here.

rough day

I'm writing this from Park City, Utah, where we're getting ready for the annual Huntsman Cup races, which run this Friday through Sunday. The rest of the team skied at Deer Valley this morning while I stayed behind tinkering with my monoski. At noon I joined the others at Park City Resort to run some slalom.

We were training on CB's, a long, steep hill that used to host men's World Cup races every year. (I usually like the trail, and I like to say that they named it after me.) The course today was on the steepest part of the run, and the snow was mostly man-made, a contrast from the stuff we've been skiing on in Winter Park. What's more, I was skiing on a new shock absorber and my monoski just didn't feel right. These factors came together to foreground some of the weaknesses in my skiing, and the result was that I had an absolutely awful day of training. I didn't make it through the course once, blowing out or falling several times each run. The coaches kept offering advice, but all I wanted was to be left alone and try and work my way out of the hole I was digging for myself. On days like today it's really hard to make yourself keep skiing when you know it's not going to get any better. All I can do is put today behind me, be glad it was only a training day, and redouble my efforts tomorrow.

(The linguist in me wonders: why redouble? It's not like I've already doubled them...)