March 6th, 2008
Sorry for the wait. I’ve finally reached the land of reliable internet, and after three days, received my luggage. Gotta say, Italy was fantastic. Not only did we get to see Otzi, the 5000 year old man, we got in some great skiing and some good old fashion team camaraderie. Only way to properly bring you along on the journey would be through pictorial depictions, so here it goes…
This here is the stadium. It was pretty small and the mass start was… interesting, but still very impressive for only having eight days to pull the whole thing together. The stadium was practically non-existent when we first arrived and workers were frantically dumping snow in the ravine to widen the stadium.
The rest of the course consisted of switch backs up and down the surrounding hillsides. Tight turns and hard granular snow (at least in the mornings) lead to many crashes and broken equipment. The snow started off as bulletproof, but as more teams arrived to the venue and the midday temperatures started pushing the mercury towards 60 degrees -the snow quickly transformed into soup by the time the men’s races went off.
Here was one of the hardest things to deal with. Not only was the venue at altitude (1700 meters), covered in sloppy snow, and smelled of the fine essences of cow dung, but lack of winds allowed for the heavy onset of the inversion from the nearby towns and cities (mostly due to wood burning stoves). This pollution began settling down in the valley, causing many athletes to wake with sore throats. The inversion got so bad that we had to go down to the local hardware store to purchase dust masks to help protect ourselves.
Even with the inversion, it is hard to say anything negative about this beautiful place. Nestled in the valleys of the Alps, we were surrounded by acres and acres of apple trees. I guess the area that we were in is famous for their apples -as they should be -for the fruit from these trees were beyond delicious. The community was so serious about their fruit, that as prizes for the skiers on the podium, each was awarded a box full of locally grow apples. This picture here is one of the many apple tree fields we flew past on a train ride to Bozen.
Not only was the countryside filled with apple trees, they were also littered with ancient castles as far as the eye could see. It was pretty neat to see dozens and dozens of castles in the surrounding hillsides and to think just how much history we were being apart of. There must of been epic battles between neighboring feuds.
Unfortunately war is something that they are used to in Northern Italy. Here is one of the many pillboxes that was built during WWII and strategically positioned amidst the farmlands. After skiing one day we went to investigate. It was wild to see one of these fighting fortresses up close. The entire front was riddled with bullet holes. Climbing inside and exploring deep into the levels of the fort, you would get an eerie feeling of the history of the place and how many lives were changed or lost in the very place we stood. Northern Italy has actually be fought over so many times, that while we were officially in Italy -the locals (especially the elderly) saw themselves as distinctively German and German was the local language.
Speaking of history -on one of our rest days a few of us took a train to Bozen to see the one and only Otzi. In this picture we are walking through the old crowded streets in search of the famed iceman. Otzi, or the 5000 year old man, is the oldest human ever discovered and was found sticking out of a nearby glacier. Supposedly he was murdered at age 46 -shot in the back with an arrow. Besides his assassination, Otz (as his closer friends refer to him) has shown the world how people lived back in the day as he was discovered with all of his possessions and DNA analysis was able to figure out where he had lived at every point in his life. Yeah a little nerdy but hey it was interesting.
Well besides all that fun stuff the trip consisted of a bunch of easy skiing and hard racing. Here the troop gets ready to go for a training ski. Lack of snow at lower altitudes made finding snow away from the crowded race venue difficult, but we found a few peaceful k’s of groomed snow here and there.
And well, I can’t go any further without mentioning the awesome display of dominance that the U23 gals of Liz Stephen, Morgan Arritola and Taz Mannix showed in the 15km freestyle race. With under a kilometer to go all three gals were in the top 5 and looking good. Unfortunately some bad luck plagued us on a particularly nasty turn, and only Liz was able to escape unscathed and went on to an incredible 3rd place. Watching the American flag being raised later that night at the awards was nothing less than spectacular.
While Liz was our only one on the podium, everyone did a fantastic job racing and things are only on the the up and up. Thanks to an amazing coaching staff, and our killer, yet handicapped, waxing crew consisting of big Broken-legged Ben and Gimped-back Gibbs, the athletes really had the best entourage available.
So with that, I just want to say thank you to everyone on the trip -you all made it great -and to everyone else for supporting and helping our athletes not only ski at, but to be a fighting force at the international and championship level. So yeah, thank you. And now for a few remaining photos of the trip…
Simi Hamilton deep in concentration during the relays
Simi and Mikey Sinnott cruising around a nearby Swiss town
Liz Stephen showing her game face
And finally -not too bad a scenery, eh?
