So, I got to watch my first ever live World Cup today. The hills were bigger than anything I’ve seen, and watching the best skiers in the world (literally) fly up them five feet away from me made for quite a day. I did a light intensity session aiming at the sprint tomorrow, and skied behind Georgio Di Centa and Pietro Piller Cotrer while they were warming up. It was pretty crazy to be out on course watching later on, while they were racing, and watch those two battling for the win. Turns out, they ended up going 1-2.

Even on top of this, the highlight of the day was seeing my dad walk towards me as I came skidding to a stop between intervals. I had absolutely no idea that he was going to come, so it was pretty surreal to see him here, especially after I’ve been gone from home for so long. Since December 27^th, I’ve been home a day and a half.

For the most complete result run down from today, check out the articles on the main page of Fasterskier. It was cool to watch Becca, the only other Fairbanks skier here, ski to a solid result in her first ever World Cup on a ridiculous course. She and I have grown up skiing together in town, so it is sweet to both be here racing our first World Cups together.

Tomorrow when I write a blog post, I will have had lined up in the start pen against the best sprinter in the world. I’m not expecting much, but gonna give it a whirl.

Another stunning day in Canmore.

This massive boom truck is parked at the end of the stadium, and the huge camera on the end is lifted way up, to look down on the finish, and send live feed to Europe for Eurosport primetime.

Becca and Nicole lapping through as Kikkan is just starting.

Holly was one of the fastest gals out there for a majority of the race.

Kikkan following the Sprint star Petra Majdic.

I was chilling behind Di Centa, Cotrer, and Rickardsson during their warm up. Multiple Olympic and World Champs golds, World Cup globes, Tour de Ski and World Cup wins in this picture

Bird-man, top US male in 20th. These guys are rediculously fast.

Let’s see, how do I say this? Canmore is amazing. You drive in from Calgary, and the mountains just explode from the prairie, up into the cloudless sky.

Most of the US Nations Group is staying in the Hotel of the Rockies, along with the Italian team. By “most”, I mean APU plus Kuzzy, the Hoff, C Cook, and I. The Sun Valley contingent is somewhere else, the CXC crew is somewhere else again, and the A Team is somewhere separate from them and us. So basically, no one is living together, which seems kinda lame.

Other than that, it’s ideal. Busses between the hotels and venue constantly, 25 degrees (F) and great snow. The altitude is a little bit of a nuisance, and combined with extreme jet lag, could be potentially hazardous to one’s health. But I actually feel pretty good, so that encouraging. The 10/15k skate goes off tomorrow, so I think I’ll go up and watch that, and get ready for my classic sprint on Saturday. Should be unbelievably crazy.

Woke up to this out my hotel window this morning.

Part of the stadium. That guy in the German suit leaning on his poles is an Olympic sprint Gold medalist, now coaching; Hetland.

Perfect skiing in beautiful weather in a beautiful place.

They dont mess around with off-road transportation.

Went for a run this afternoon and had to use our mad intimidation skills to get some elk out of the way.

Some of the AK crew.

Most of the AK crew, plus the team doc and his wife. Note the flag. Were planning on putting one up on the pole outside too.

I made it into Canmore yesterday, and boy, does this place live up to all its hype. But enough of that. Heres one last picture collection from Germany. After this, it will be Canmore updates everyday baby!

They had the best athlete care Ive ever seen; unlimited free food, chocolate, and hot drinks in the Athlete tent. Needless to say, it was a pretty popular spot.

Baller Table; the core support team for Big Red.

Just a bunch of average Joes, plus mom, dad, and littlest Northug there in the middle.

The even have their own family jackets. And yes, I did stock Papa Northug around for a while to take this picture.

After fielding requests from nearly the entire team, the restaurant finally starting setting out the "American Sauce" on a regular basis.

Germans love their beer. They even have candy that imitates it.

Until next year…

I am taking this opportunity to apologize on behalf of certain US team members (ahem…) for their responsibility in getting our hotels internet shut down. Turns out, all that Torrent/Napster/Limewire media sharing that is already slightly illegal in the States is one notch below the death penalty over there. The EU Big Brother must be keeping a close watch, because the internet provider was forced to cut connectivity so no more of this American nonsense could take place. Anyways, it cost me two weeks of college homework and it cost you entertaining blog posts.

Since Nat/Fasterskier did such a sweet job of covering the races, I will let you check out their articles for what went down on the track. I will post some less-racing related pictures from the trip, and hopefully more to come.

Here a little sequence as you drive up from the valley floor to the racing venue:

ultimate Europe ski van… I want it

more snow and better trails than many had seen in central Europe

Providing that the internet doesnt get put on lockdown, I will put up a few more Germany posts and then as often as I can this week about the scene in Canmore. Its still a little surreal to be heading towards my first World Cup start, but it should be a trip!

I was shopping  for Wii games at my local video game store, when I ran across this.

Sorry for the lack of blogs. The internet company pulled the plug (literally) on our hotel, so we have absolutely no internet anymore. The rumor is that the Kazak’s were trying to hack into the hotel’s accounts and the hotel decided not to risk it. I literally drove up the valley to find internet, so this post comes to you with much sweat toil.

Also, the Junior classic race has happened since I wrote this, but Nat is absolutely killing the reporting over here, so there should be plenty of stuff on the main Fasterskier site. I will try to post whenever I can.

Two days, one event down. The Juniors raced their skate sprint on Monday, and the U23s went today (Tuesday). For some reason, the US seems to usually be a stronger sprinting nation, and there were definitely American skiers who had some pretty high aspirations. In the few days leading up to the sprints, the phrases “A final”, “medal”, and even “win” were definitely thrown around, and not by any slouches. With two National Champions and many podium finishers from the sprints in Anchorage on this team, the US brought some serious sprinting heat.

Considering what could have happened had everything gone right, there was the subtle taste of disappointment in the air.

The Junior girls put two in the top 30, with Jessie qualifying in 18^th and Sophie in 19th. It was tough to see Digger go down when one of the gnarly Euros basically skied over her boots, but that’s how it goes I guess. The best explanation I’ve heard suggested is that she’s from the Midwest… Neither of them were able to advance out of the quarters, and Soph ended up 24^th with Jess in 26^th.

The Boys couldn’t quite keep up with our gals, with only Erik Bjornsen making the rounds. There was a double disappointment here; Packman slotted in the dreaded 31^st spot, three one-hundredths out, and TK, known for his lead role in the famous “Who The Heck is Tyler Kornfield” article, came down with a nearly decapitating flu the morning of the race and nearly scratched, but made it to   place. Erik tried bashing his way through the pack in his quarter, but the three 180 degree turns leading into the finish didn’t favor anyone but the front two skiers. He ended the day in  .

The U23 women rallied the 42 skier field, throwing all four into the top 20 in the qualifying round. Ida was ripping it, finishing 2^nd in both of her heats, which got her into the A final. Rosie and Sadie were both 3^rd in their heats, but unbelievably, neither got the Lucky Loser nod. Ida’s amazing performance to get herself 4^th in the A final was definitely the highlight of the day, and it was so sweet to see her up on the flower ceremony.

The U23 men had a bittersweet day, which arguably tilted more towards the bitter side. Simi threw down like he always does and straight up won the qualifier, and by over a second!! The German anncouncer was yelling “Sigh-mon Hamahl-ton” all morning, which was sweet; it’s nice to know that the American Skate Sprint champion is the fastest at U23 Worlds too. Now if I could only close those 8 seconds that were between us, I would be fine! Pete Kling showed why he is such a skate sprint heavyweight, squeaking in with 27^th place. I was 33^rd, about .5 seconds out, and Patty J was somewhere around 38^th. This is where the “bitter” part comes in: Simi is leading his quarter, goes into the woods, and a few seconds later, all five except him come flying out. Apparently, his basket got skied over and he pulled his grip right off his pole. “I was left shaftless!” he said, when asked to sum up the fiasco.

Kling-on skied in a pretty tight quarter, where the 3^rd and 4^th finishers moved on as Lucky Losers:

The U23 mens A final blazes through the section with all the tight turns:

It came down to a three way drag, with a Norwegian overtaking the #2 bib Swiss for the win:

The women’s heats were also tighter than most I’ve seen:

By far the most exciting part of the day was seeing Ida ski to a 4^th place. Here, she and the eventual World Champion ski away from the field:

Ida blazes in to 2^nd place in her semifinal, getting an A final berth:

After crossing the line, the athletes were swallowed by the media mob: Ida’s bib #4:

I’m going to interrupt Reese and David’s reports from Germany with an update from Finland. Different part of Europe, different athletes, same Team USA, same objectives.     

            It’s amazing how fast time flies when you are having fun. I know that is the classic saying, but it obviously has been tried and trued. So here I am already in day five of my Finland trip with the U.S. J1 team. The team all arrived in Helsinki on Thursday, and then spent a couple of days in the famous skiing town of Lahti. After that we drove north to the town of Kuopio.

            Although that is the skeleton of our trip so far, there were many crazy experiences witnessed along the way. Learning the works of Finland is a long process. One of the first odd things we encountered here were the street signs. It was great watching the coaches try to navigate through downtown Helsinki not knowing what a circle with a horizontal line going through it means. Also, unlike the U.S. where most rental cars come in the automatic option, our big vans turned out to be manuals. Yeah, that pretty much adds a whole new level of craziness to the scene.

            We skied for a couple of days on the World Cup trails of Lahti. One of the most mind-boggling things of this place is the stadium. Where else but Scandinavia do you see a twenty thousand plus seat stadium at a ski venue? Also over here they use an adjustable track setter. This took some serious getting used too, because the tracks are normal on the uphills, but then widen to about a foot apart in the middle for the downhills. This place is on the cutting edge of snow grooming technology!

            Kuopio is really nice, and it is just like home. Nice, cold snow and cold temperatures make it seem that I have not even left home. All these things make everything really easy to adjust to, except for the food. I was reminded that I was in Finland after the coaches made all of us down a squeeze of Caviar. Pretty crazy!

Will Wicherski questions the un-imaginably wide tracks.

Can you imagine these things full?

The relatively relaxed week of preparation that the US team has had here in Germany is about to come to a close. Now that everyone has finally showed up, the athlete count is at 23, and there are about seven or eight coaches. It’s pretty easy to see the level of experience of this support staff, because even with so many athletes needing so many different things, everything has been pretty chill. On any given day, there are skiers doing intervals, testing skis, time trialing, doing over-distance, skiing short and easy, and of course taking the day off. The coaches have been amazing at transporting, waxing, and advising on all of these unique plans, and the athletes have been working alongside one another to get stuff done.

With the Junior Sprint opening up the week of racing tomorrow, things will likely get a little crazier from here on out. The stadium is now pretty packed with national teams of all flavors. The big guns like Russia, Norway, Sweden, and Germany have been pulling in over the last few days, and the venue is taking on its World Championship form.

Skiing around with other athletes from all over the US, athletes that we don’t normally get to train with, is definitely one of the highlights. It’s sweet everyone ripping around in the high tech red gear, and the Fairbanks crew spun a few laps together:

The venue is really sweet. The wax cabins (mansions?) are some of the most plush I have seen, and believe it or not, there is actually a small amount of room in ours:

Any guesses on whos skis these are?

So, we on our fifth day here in southern Germany, which is just about enough time to get fully settled in. The weather has been amazing so far, making the skiing really easy. Ok, not easy, but at least really enjoyable. Like I mentioned, the courses are pretty intense; there are basically no flat areas, and the hills are fairly formidable. I’ve never seen a more dynamic loop; the trees along the downhills are padded, and the climbs can’t be strided (strode?) without redlining.

The first race oriented activity was getting our credentials. The US crew pretty much took over the race office and all posed for our mugshots:

After picking those up, a bunch of the crew headed into Freiburg, which is definitely the biggest city in the area. The closest train station is just a little jaunt away, so we jumped on and cruised on down the valley into a very sweet German city. On the train, Erik Bjornsen found a friend; this energetic little German boy who was engrossed in his picture book:

The city was pretty typical of Europe, but we still had a good time checking out the streets and shops:

as well the awe-inspiring church:

This morning we ran a mock sprint race, just to try to get the feel of the course. Everyone was pretty busy, but it turned out as a pretty beneficial workout. People packed up and headed out with the stoke pretty high:

Just a few days to go until the first race, and things are lookin good. The big-time national teams are rollin in all over the place and theres a lot of skiing going on, and we will keep the posts coming hot and heavy.