The last three days have been plagued with tough weather and inconstant snow. In the night slalom on the first day I drew bib 3, which was great (the top 15 ranked racers in each race start in random order). The snow was extremely soft, soft enough to stick a pole in the snow at least three feet down without reaching anything remotely hard. With such a good bib draw it was essential to drop the hammer and try to put some distance on the field in the first run and then just ski well in the second run. I pinned it and nearly did a front flip after I hit a hole in a poorly lit section of the course before I was ejected from the course 25 into the first run. The German that started first won the first run by 4 seconds, while 70 percent of the field didn’t finish the race.

The second and third day could have gone better. My slalom race skis broke last week and I’m racing on a brand new pair that hasn’t been skied in so my slalom definitely isn’t up to par especially in soft snow. Fischers, my ski of choice, ski best after they’re broken in so it looks like they’ll get better hopefully soon. All and all, this series turned out to be less than ideal, but my GS has promise. In the GS race today I blew out, but was skiing well.

Tomorrow we leave for Italy to compete in two Europa Cups (a GS and a SL) before we scoot home on Thursday. This will be another chance to race against some world class athletes since a bunch of Olympic slalom skiers will be using the race as a tune up for Torino.