Hello all,

I’m still up in Finland after serious consideration of pulling the ripcord after a couple brutal days, a Finnish Airways strike that could have cancelled the races, and a bad weather report. But, the last two days have been much better so I’m in for the long haul. The weather has been challenging at best. I’ve been here for a full week and I have not seen the sun yet. It’s up for around four hours a day and there is a thick cloudbank 80 meters above the base of the mountain (see picture below). It’s been quite warm 0-3 degrees Celsius so the snow is relatively bad other than the part injected for the world cup slalom.

The last two days I was able to train with the Rovaniemi Ski Team and the Finland Junior Team on the race hill in GS, which was great. The snow was pretty good on the pitch where it was injected for the slalom world cup up here, but up top was pretty mediocre. All and all, it was great to get some skiing in. We did double sessions the last three days starting with a day of slalom since the race slope was closed due to snow sticking to the gondola wheels.

When I saw Truls Ove Karlsen – while I cheered on Hailey and Kaylin, among other Americans – he said to me, “You know what Finns do in the winter, right? They get drunk and wait for summer.” I can see how this could easily become a reality.

Anyway, we have one more day of GS on the race hill, then we’re off to Ruka for two slalom races. Since there isn’t any training pretty much anywhere near here, the race slope will be closed to get it ready, and I don’t have a car anymore. I’m going to jump into the slalom races. Not to mention, the people I’ve been training with really want my points in the race.

Unfortunately, the weather report for the weekend looks very warm, wet, and foggy. I am really looking forward to Colorado sunshine.

Hope the sun is shinning on your backs somewhere. These are a couple pics from today. Mind you, the one at the start was taken at high noon. Hilarious.

I just received an email from an exhausted Charles Christianson after his drive from Hamburg, Germany to Tarnaby, Sweden (1890 km) where I was planning on going, but decided against it due to the cancelled GS's and no car. He ended it with, "Hope you're well man, I wish you were here. Say it with me, "USA! USA!"" It's a tough journey without a fellow countryman. Say it with us, “USA! USA!”

All the best, w