It was also a great opportunity for our team to get some exposure on national television.  NBC Sports came and did some interviews and got a lot of great footage.  The race will be televised next Saturday and is definitely worth watching.  There was some major carnage out there during the finals. 

   We have the next week off and then continue with the World Cup Tour over in Germany.  Looking to finish out the season strong and try to land some podium finishes.

  Just finished up with the 2nd day of training at X Games.  The course is so much fun and not that scary anymore.  When I was in the starting gate during my first run yesterday I felt like it was my first time running the Birds of Prey course in Beaver Creek.  Some of the features are pretty intimidating but now I’m ready to crush this thing.  Tomorrow is the qualification run and I need to be top 24 in order to make the finals but going for the win.

Here’s a link to the video clip of the start.

http://www.zapiks.fr/coupe-du-monde-skicross-alpe.html

   The next round I had a slow start and was in fourth place going into the first turn.  I was able to pass a Russian guy after he messed up a turn but then wasn’t able to close the gap on the 2nd place guy.  I finished in 12th place overall though so hoping to improve on that result this week in Les Contamines, France.

   The course this week in Les Contamines is really technical with some giant slalom like turns, injection, and an awkward hip jump towards the bottom.  It will definitely be an interesting race. 

    The race didn’t start until 8:00 at night and there were probably about ten thousand people in attendance.  Sitting at the start, you could only see a hundred yards to the first jump before it dropped off down the pitch.  You couldn’t see the finish area at all and it felt like the only people there were the ones up at the start with you.  However, the smoke from the fireworks and the techno music bumping reminded me of the thousands of drunken Austrians raging at the bottom of the mountain. It was so cool to cross the finish line in my first heat knowing I advanced to the next round and at the same time be surrounded by the crazy scene taking place.

    The next round didn’t go too well for me as I got hung up on the first jump and dropped back to fourth.  I tried to make some good turns and catch up to the guys in front but ran out of real estate.  FIS did a great job putting on the event and everyone had a blast after the race listening to the music and hitting up the beer tent. 

    The next day we continued on to Alpe d’Huez, France where the next race takes place.  It took us most of the day to get here but we finally made it after a couple of detours.  We trained on the course today and it has to be the most fun course I’ve ever skied.  I was able to get five runs during the training time so I feel like I know the course very well and I’m confident I can do well in the qualifications tomorrow.  Also, I recently found out that I qualified for the Winter X-Games in Aspen so I’m pumped about that.  They take place in Aspen, Colorado January 25^th through the 29^th so it should be a pretty good time. 

    Here’s a pic from the first round of heats at Innichen/San Candido.  Looking to move on a little bit further this time.  Thanks www.walderchristian.com for the images. 

    Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of snow in Vermont over break so I only had a few days on snow.  I was able to spend some time in the gym though and did a session with Bill Knowles from iSPORT to work on reaction time for my starts.  Should be good to go for these next races.

    Just finished my first World Cup Ski Cross race today in Innichen/San Candido, Italy.  It was such an amazing experience and felt really good to get one under my belt.  In the qualifier, I started 64th and moved up to 12th so I was in a pretty good position for the first round of heats.  I was able to have the second lane pick so I chose the inside right which gave me a straight shot to the first gate but still left some room so I couldn’t get pinched out at the first turn. 

     It was neck and neck out of the gate but I found myself in second place coming into the first turn.  The rest of the run I focused on making good moves over all of the jumps/terrain and made sure to keep a tight line so I wouldn’t “leave the door” open for people to pass.  I ended up in second place which allowed me to move on to the quarter finals.

     The next round was a bit more difficult as I was up against David Duncan, Patrick Gasser, and the 2011 Overal Champion Andreas Matt.  In the quarter final heat, I had some trouble in the start and was fourth place coming into the first turn.  I thought my day was pretty much over but I was able to catch up to the pack midway down the course.  I knew I had to just be patient and wait for the right time to pass.  After a rythm section of rollers, Matt attempted to pass Gasser but leaned in a bit and dropped some speed.  I was able to crank out a turn from the back of the pack and catch up to him over the next jump.  Into the next left handed turn I had a slight advantage and cut him off at the gate. 

   Now I was in third place…I continued to be patient and waited out the next section of the course sticking right behind Gasser and Duncan.  The last pitch was my chance to make speed into the final straight away to the finish so I knew I had to make a clean turn.  As the three of us hammered down the pitch at about 60 mph, I got a little too close to Gasser and the tips of my skis were slapping the tails of his skis.  I suddenly got off balance and spun around to the right but my left ski was still heading in the direction of the track.  I tried to recover but got launched over a double feature and faceplanted off of the course. 

    Initially, I felt pretty bummed out because the guy in second place crashed off of the final jump so if I stayed on my feet I wouldv’e been set to make the semi finals.  However, I’m really happy with my 14th place finish and I’m looking forward to the next race tomorrow.  I’ll have a better start position and a little more experience so we’ll see how it goes.

This is Pat Duran and myself going at it…The goal for today was to absorb the jumps as much as possible in order to keep the flight moving forward/down the hill rather than up high.

Here’s a free lesson…

I popped the last feature and went a little bit farther than I wanted to jump.

   Looking forward to another few days here in Telluride…It’s been a great experience so far and it’s a great group of guys to ski with.

    Pat and I took turns giving each other a start cadence and even got U.S. Ski Teamer, Alice Mckennis, in there to try a few.  This will be a great opportunity to get our starts ready for the first World Cup races in Innichen, Italy next month and will be especially beneficial to me.  My starts are my weak point right now so I’m pretty psyched about the start gate we found.

    Earlier in the week, the Canadian Men’s Speed Team coaches were nice enough to let me train a couple days of downhill with them.  It only cost me a couple cases of Coors Original so it was quite the deal.  It was a lot of fun to go fast again and my times were right in there.  I even smoked Aksel Lund Svindal in the start split a couple of times.

    Pat and I had a pretty epic day.  We made it out on the slopes early this morning and got some great runs in…The weather was perfect and the snow was about as good as it can get for this early in the season.  The terrain park is also in pretty good shape so we took a few laps in there.  After skiing, we hit up the gym and played an hour or so of raquetball…haven’t played in a while but still smoked Pat. 

    Finally got a decent ski tuning set up near the condo.  I’ve basically been using a different pair of skis every day because I haven’t been able to tune or wax them so I had quite the build up.

   I think the greatest accomplishment of the day had to be cooking up this turkey.  We named it Tony because Pat loaded it up with Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning.  Tony tasted great though and had to be one of the best turkey’s we’ve ever eaten.  Almost had a crisis mid way through because we didn’t have any aluminum foil to cover it and Tony started getting a little too much color.  Luckily, Pat’s gf, Alice McKennis, is a quicker thinker than us and used a Coors box to cover it.