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Welcome to Trondheim, Norway
Friday, November 30, 2007

So the good news is we’ve made it to Trondheim, Norway (only two hours away from Are, Sweden where we’re racing slalom tomorrow). The not so good news is that only two bags of our 8 checked in arrived at our side. The two bags were Roger’s and neither of them contained skis, bummer.

It’s 9:10 PM here and apparently three of our bags – checked in under my name – are expected arrive at 11:00 via Copenhagen, which is a long story as we flew through Frankfurt and Olso. So right now we’re just hoping that both of us will have a pair of slalom skis to race on tomorrow. We split up our slalom skis to insure that at least one pair would make it, but since the check in person at DIA printed all of our tags off together and randomly tagged our bags, we have no idea what’s going to arrive. The rest are scheduled to arrive via Oslo tomorrow afternoon.

So we’re crossing our fingers, waiting it out, and hoping that we can actually race in the AM on our equipment.


The world tour continues. w

Nor-Am Recap:
In the last GS, I had another stellar first run and was in second, then got a bit late in the ruts second run and moved back to 13th, but still scored a result, which was nice.
The slalom I think I finished 17th and 15th, but wasn’t happy with any of the 4 runs.

posted by Warner at 11/30/2007 03:27:00 PM (permanent link to this post) 0 comments


Colorado
Monday, November 26, 2007

I love Colorado during Thanksgiving week!! The whole U.S. ski racing world makes the pilgrimage to Colorado for reliable training because no other region has been able to fill their mountains with snow so early in the season. It's almost like homecoming as college, club, and national teams hit Colorado for early snow and the start to the North American racing season. Not to mention, my brother, mother, Dennis, Jamie, along with a bunch of other friends were here in Colorado for the Thanksgiving fest.

Anyway, after a very productive camp here in Colorado Roger and I have started our ridiculous racing schedule – we’re calling it the world tour – of the next 10 days. We’ll be racing at Keystone for two GS races, Winter Park for two slaloms, then hammer to the Denver airport to catch a flight to Sweden, race two slalom races in Are, Sweden, and finally two GS races in Aal, Norway. It’s 8 races in 10 days in two continents and three countries. It’s a little retarded, but totally worth it. If we’re really tired we’ll take a day off racing in there somewhere.

Today was the first North American race of the season at Keystone, CO. It was a somewhat stacked field of World Cup GS skiers. I started 5th because of last years Nor-Am standings and put together a great run with two mistakes. When I crossed the finish line I was a little bummed out with my performance, but when I reached the scoreboard everyone was looking at me, which is always a good sign. I ended up finishing 2nd, three-tenths behind Kalle Palander, so I was very satisfied with the way the first run ended up.

Then second run, I took a slightly rounder line on one section, felt great all the way to the bottom, crossed the finish line completely psyched, and ended moving all the way back to 12th, I think, and was over two seconds off Palander’s pace.

So all and all, the moral to this story is when you feel great you’re probably way too round and not getting off your skis nearly quick enough. Tomorrow I’m going to put together two runs at full gas right on the edge of out of control.

Have fun (I’m sure I will). w

I’d like to thank Jamie Kingsbury of Stratton Mountain School for being our coach out here in Colorado for the last two weeks. Thanks you’ve been an enormous help.

posted by Warner at 11/26/2007 09:47:00 PM (permanent link to this post) 0 comments


back in holland
Tuesday, November 06, 2007

A lot has happened since I last sat down at my trusty computer to put together a little update. Our trip to Holland, two weeks ago, turned out to be quite an adventure. We ran into a complete grid lock traffic jam, created our own off ramp thru a field onto a farmers goat road (we merely followed a few locals), watched a drunk driver back up into another car at a service station rest area, and finally settled down for the night in our van around 2 AM after 8 hours of driving. In the morning we saw the gargantuan tin shell or dome and we knew we’d finally arrived. Skiing inside is entirely entertaining. The dome’s climate is cold – without any sunlight – with a musty, humid dampness similar to an indoor ice rink. It has a Vegas/Casino like aura as florescent lights are always illuminated and music is constantly playing making time seem entirely irrelevant.

We trained with the Norwegians for two days on the extremely flat 25-second slalom course. It’s only FIS legal because indoor races are held to a much lower standard. Both Roger and I got smoked by a couple of the Norwegians, but it was just what we need to get motivated for out last prep camp.

We left Holland and drove straight to Munich to pick up Rogan Connell, the current Bates College coach, approximately two hours late, whoops. Rogan came over to help us out and be our coach for the last 10 days. It makes a huge difference having a coach around for course setting, slipping, coaching, video, and general banter. Rogan was great; we just wish we had him for the rest of the season.

With Rogan around we had 5 great days of GS where both Roger and I made some big strides at the Stubai glacier only a thirty minute drive from the apartment in Patsch. In slalom we had a couple good days and I’ve changed my boots canting set up so my slalom boots have about a 0.4 degree cant out to give me just a bit less edge angle than before.

We just took a couple days off and now we have two days of training back up in Landgraaf before the Europa Cup season opener. The world cup schedule changed due to limited snow in Finland so the field here in Landgraaf is very strong. The prep season is over and now it’s time to get after it.

Hope all is well and I’ll be in touch. w

posted by Warner at 11/06/2007 02:36:00 PM (permanent link to this post) 0 comments