I’m not going to lie. I have a hangover right now. After watching Ted’s triumphant combined race last night, we hit the town, hard. It was truly amazing to see good ole Ted strike gold yesterday. I just can’t believe how well he’s skiing and how much speed he’s creating. He is the fastest slalom skier in the world right now, possibly ever. For those of you who don’t know Ted Ligety won the Olympic Gold in the combined.

If the Olympic skiing coverage is any good in the states and you had the opportunity to watch the combined (one downhill run and two slalom runs), then you might have acquire a better understanding of what the sport of ski racing is all about. It’s a crazy sport, an emotional rollercoaster and nothing can be taken for granted. One moment you’re sitting on gold, up by two seconds and the very next you’re standing in the finish looking at the board wondering what happened. Bode Miller and Benni Raich, the favorites to win, were both disqualified after they straddled, but that’s what ski racing is all about.

Yesterday we raced a GS at Hinterreit, one of our favorite training locations, and I skied well. Things are starting to click again. I finished 13 with an exceptional field and it will only get better from there. I figured a few things out free skiing and I’m starting to get more ankle flexion which means I can snap turns off with more precision. Not to mention, the injected ice rinks that we’ve been racing on makes you a much better skier. Small errors become catastrophic ones on injected snow.

We couldn’t get any hill space today so we’re taking it off (i.e. not skiing), but doing some dryland at Rif and tomorrow we’ll start getting ready for two slalom races on Friday and Saturday (the races at St. Michael were cancelled so we’re off to Germany tomorrow for a night slalom on Friday and a day slalom on Saturday). Then we’ll be off to Italy for a couple Europa Cups early next week.

Long live The Ligety, w