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.

FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup – AUDI FIS Ski Cross World Cup in Innichen is good to go.

    Today was day two of our training camp in Telluride.  It’s a great set up here and we have two courses to work with.  One of them has a few rollers, a jump, and then about six big banked turns and the second course is basically a straight shot down with five gap jumps and a big ”cheese wedge” jump to the finish.   My main focus at this camp is to work on my starts and get comfortable with the interesting terrain that Ski Cross has to offer.  Check out some of the head to head videos from today…

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.

    So Pat and I found this make shift start gate in the parking lot at Copper Mountain…not really sure who built it but thanks.  We dragged it over to the side of the hill where a snow cat just moved a bunch of snow and then borrowed a couple of shovels to get it into place.  It didn’t take too much time and we were able to spend an hour or so pulling starts.  It’s perfect because we can walk right over any time of day to use it.  It’s actually underneath a street light so we can even practice at night if we feel the need.

    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. 

    First day of skiing at Copper today…the snow is in pretty good shape but there were about a thousand too many people.  It felt great to get back out there though and rip some turns.  We had a leisurely morning and didn’t get on the hill until about 10:00 or so.  Just had to pick up a pass and get my skis in order.  It was also nice to bump into some ski friends that I haven’t really seen since last season.  A lot of college, regional, and different national teams will start to roll into town in the next few days or so and I’m sure the crowrds won’t get any better.  I think were gonna have to set the alarms so we can make it onto the first chair tomorrow since its Saturday.  Looking forward to a great week of skiing here…

    Vermont started to get some snow last week. There’s not enough to ski yet though, so I am off to Colorado for about four weeks to train in Copper and Telluride. I’ve been looking forward to getting back on snow now for a long time now and I’m hoping tomorrow will be the day. My plan is to spend the first week doing a lot of free skiing and drills just to get my feet back under me, then spend some time training giant slalom and super-g, hopefully by mid-November the team will have a ski cross up and running so we can have some real fun.
    I also found out today that I have a spot for the first five World Cups over in Europe. That is exciting news for me and will allow for plenty of opportunities to qualify and make some great results. I am currently stuck in the Chicago O’Hare Airport waiting to get on a flight sometime today hopefully, everything is oversold. My buddy Pat Duran is probably waiting for me at the Denver Intl. Airport wondering what’s going on…Oh well.