Bristol has added a new event building which is fabric structure at one end of the area. This gets all the racers and their gear away from the regular skiing public and works to every one's advantage. They put ample outlets so it was crock pot city. There is only a few minutes of downtime between runs as the second run of a race starts 60 minutes after the second course is finished being set. Generally, 30 minutes is plenty of time to set a course. Having food ready for athletes, volunteers, coaches and parents makes life much easier. It is difficult to predict when the first run of a race will be finished.
Ready for Inspection
Inspecting the course
Happy racer!
Visualization
Confident racer!
Packing in 10 inches of snow for SuperG 1
Finishing inspection
As a team we skied really tight in the slalom. We had one good race out of the 6 athletes. I was the men's ref (racers advocate) and so had duties beyond the Lab athletes. This pulled me away from the kids and didn't help, but probably did not effect the less than great racing we did that day. There was a team captains (coaches) meeting after skiing so we sent the kids back to the hotel with the parents and Kathy (the other coach from Labrador) and I attended the meeting There were weather concerns about Monday and Tuesday.. there was snow and/or rain coming. Bad weather wreaks havoc on speed events and there were super G races scheduled for both days. Kathy and I finally left after 4:00 PM and stopped along the way at the Ski Company outlet. We had gotten a tip from a Bristol coach that there were supper G skis in shorter lengths. We bought 3 pair of super G skis; 2 Dynastar and one Volkle, all under 190 cm. The Dynastars were nice and flexible the Volkles, a little on the stiff side but we went through all they had and found the softest pair.
I turned out the kids were taken to the nearby mall and were eating at the food court. When I called my daughter she was eating lo mein. I walked across the parking to to the Fridays next door to eat with some of the parents and the other coach. The drinks began flowing like water. I am not a big drinker, I ordered a Guinness and nursed it. I have been making beer this fall and had some delicious pilsner back in hotel room and intended on having one after dinner. I was getting worried that the bill would be split so I ordered a steak like everyone else when we ordered dinner. I did not want to have to throw in $40.00 for a chicken ceasar and a beer...at least I would have a steak for my money. The steak turned out to be pretty good and to my good fortune my dinner was picked up by the parent drinking the most. This is not that uncommon as ski racing is for the generally affluent because of its costs and everyone knows professional skiing is a pretty marginal way to make a living. But as always, getting my dinner provided was greatly appreciated.
The GS (giant slalom) wasn't so good for us either. My daughter was clean but slow, the other 2 females made pretty big mistakes. The males had a worse day. One athlete took a huge crash and went off, not only on a sled but in a back board. The ski patrol takes no chances and when there is any complaint of head or back they always use a back board. After an ambulance ride to the hospital, he was deemed okay and given the green light by the ER doc to race the next day if he felt up to it... whew. Another make, crashed in the second run and the third was so rattled by the events of the day he was really slow and looked a bit scared. We would get the team together later to see if we could get them back into a more positive cycle. SuperG 1 was Monday and we would be skiing really fast. It was time to get some focus and confidence and remember how much fund skiing and ski racing is.
Ski racing is this amazing combination of situational variables. The game is between you and what is placed in the snow for you to ski around. But there is the weather, the trail the race is on the snow condition, your start position, who else is there, what the race means for the athlete, the physical condition of the athlete, their mental preparedness, equipment, blah, blah, blah... The winner is really the best skier that day...not necessarily the best skier at the race. This is probably true with most sports, it just feels from my (a coaches) perspective that this is about the hardest sport. There is nothing like ski racing!
We woke up to 10 inches of snow for SuperG 1...not good. All the athletes and coaches took 3 runs to push out the new snow and pack it in to get down to a hard surface. Two top to bottoms in a wedge on Bristols most expert trail was an amazing workout. At lest the third was a side slip... much easier. The race went a bit better for us. Our athlete that went out on the sled the day before had a pretty good run. One girl crashed but the other two had solid runs. Super G is fun but scary. The athletes lean to be patient (all movements are progressive) so there skiing gets better as they learn speed. The problem is watching 14 year olds going 60 miles per hour and one of them is your daughter. I love it but I hate it too.
SuperG 2 on Tuesday was better weather and a pretty cool course set. Turns were bigger and faster but overall times were a bit slower than SG 1. We had another fun day. Our female that crashed in SuperG 1 had a very good run and was enough to get her into the JIII Jr Olympics which is the eastern US championship.
I left the mountain headed for home thinking I would finally get to spend a couple of hours with my daughter. She was pretty disappointed in her performance and was taking it out on me. If you have ever lived with a 14 year old...you know what I mean. I had to use the let's not talk at all to each other approach and she napped for about an hour. By the time we were home, all was okay with the world again... but I missed finding small adventure for us to share on the trip home. Next time.
My JIII racing season was over but we had a lot more skiing to do.
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