When you combine a whole lot of new, unknown ingredients, you are bound to get something pretty interesting, and maybe even crazy. I figured that racing my first ever city sprints, in Quebec City (which I hadn’t been to), in only my second and third World Cup races, with probably more Americans watching live than ever before, would provide plenty of excitement for one weekend. And I was so right!

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It was hard to wrap my head around ski racing right in the middle of such a bug city like that. The whole ski scene was right smack dab in the heart of the city. Our hotel and the race course were right next each other, right in the middle of the Parliament buildings. On one side you have the massive St. Lawrence river and all of its commerce:

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And then on the other side, the city goes on and on:

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And the old Citadel fortress towers over the whole area:

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Having the course nestled down in between all the big buildings made for a unique feel. It was a great course, albeit a little narrow, and there were some unique features, like this abrupt bridge that I tried to catch some air off a few times during training:

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Newell and Sylvan training:

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Kikkan and Holly running through the old stone fortress wall that surrounded part of the course:

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There were so many cool old parts of the city, parts that seemed so old and European:

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And lots of stone buildings and alleyways for Sylvan to do some wall-running:

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Buoys in the shipyards along the river:

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I thought this one was pretty weird… Looking down on a rooftop pool from my 18^th floor room:

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Quebec was an amazing, insane, inspiring experience. It may have technically been in Canada, but the sheer mass of Americans there cheering was unreal. I have never skied through a tunnel of noise like that. I literally heard people screaming my name for the entire length of the course. Surreal…

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For me, the races went pretty well. I teamed up with Pat O’Brien in the team sprint, we skied with the pack in our semi-final until the very end. We were the second American team behind Andy Newell and Simi Hamilton, so we were stoked, and it felt great to be able to ski with these big names, no big deal, and to feel comfortable in that company going that fast.

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The individual sprint was decent. The snow conditions were extremely challenging, and so I was content with where I ended up all things considered.

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Me, headed out on course for the biggest qualifier of my life. Thousands of people screaming in your face requires a slight change in mental approach:

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We traveled all day yesterday, over to Calgary and finally to Canmore late. It is very nice here, and it will be good to get some training in.

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Thanks for reading! More to come!

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2012 at 11:13 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.