Today was the last GS of the Nor-Am series and my chance to lock up my World Cup spot. I woke up ready to kick some ass and be smart. I’ve been working on giving myself room at the gate and pole planting so that my hips are over my skis at the top of the turn so that was my focus, but I also knew I needed to finish today to pick up some more points. I pushed out of the gate first run, had a pretty conservative line and skied well all the way to the bottom. I definitely did a bit too much sliding the top of the turn, but it was a solid run. I crossed the line and saw Jeffrey Frisch in the finish give a little fist pump so I knew I wasn’t faster than him. He and Brad Spence were the only other guys in the hunt for the two world cup spots on the line. I skied up to the scoreboard to see that he was 1.89 seconds ahead of me and I just couldn’t understand where I lost so much time. I guess whenever I hold back I’m just outright slow.

I was in18th place after first run so second run was a complete all out push. I skied ok up top, but I wasn’t all that happy with it, but I was able to ski really well from there down. I was cutting off the line pretty hard and arcing well. When I crossed the finish line I saw that I had a pretty good run, but I sat there and waited until Jeff came down… waiting… waiting… waiting. He was in fourth place after first run so it was indeed a ton of waiting. I was watching him ski down, hoping he would blow out or make a mistake, but he did not. Although I beat him on the run, the margin was too big to over take him. He ended up finishing in 3rd place on the day, while Brad Spence finished 6th and I finished a disappointing 12th even with a 4th on the second run. So I finished the Nor-Am GS season in 3rd. My goal of the season was to win.

It was a rough day, but at least I’m not in the red room. I had the wrong strategy and lost. I’m here with my brother, mother, father, Dennis, Becca, Sam, Ryan, Heidi, Sam’s parents, Sweetser, and Jeff Kirchoff so we’re all going to have some dinner and a couple beers.

Tomorrow we race some slalom.


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