I'm out of Slovenia and back on US soil! The pizza was fantastic in Kranjska Gora, but the racing wasn't so kind to me. The first-run course was set very directly and I think I overskied it. The Podkoren is a unique hill because it's very technical, with subtle terrain and a long steep pitch at the bottom, but more than anything it requires a tremendous amount of punch. Sadly, I wasn't up to the task yesterday.

The good news, however, was that Ted Ligety scored his second podium with another 3rd place and Jimmy Cochran scored the first slalom points of his career with a 15th place result!

Now I'm looking forward to a week-long Holiday break. It'll be great to relax at home and recharge my batteries before things start to heat up again in January.

We took the day off today and drove from Alta Badia to Kranjska Gora, through the mountains by way of Lienz, Austria. It was a nice drive and a great way to reflect on the GS race yesterday.

I always feel lucky to be able even to ski down the Gran Risa in Alta Badia. The trail is so steep and twisting, literally falling out of the mountainside into the town below. It may not be the oldest GS on the calendar, but by virtue of its difficulty it is by far the most anticipated. And what makes it even more spectacular is that they prepare the hill perfectly - with just the right amount of water so that the snow is hard and fair for everyone, but so that it also has a little bit of texture into which the edges can bite.

I skied a pretty decent run by my standards, and had moved up to 31st by the second split right before the last flat where you had to carry your speed for about 20 seconds to the finish. They made too large rolls in that flat section this year for some extra terrain, and after going a little wide on the first one, I thought to myself that I had to straighten the next one out if I was going to have a chance at a second run. Well, I straightened it out alright and went right through the panel of the next gate! Argh, only four gates from the finish and my day was finished.

However, the race held a lot of excitement leading into the second run becuause the Italians Simoncelli and Blardone sat in 1st and 2nd place respectively, with Daron Rahlves and 21 year-old Canadian Francois Bourque right on their heels after the morning's heat.

The fans' patriotic fervor paid dividends for the Italians, as they successfully harnessed the intensity to maintain the top-2 spots on the podium, only trading positions after the second run. The North Americans also switched places, with the Canadian earning a very impressive first appearance on the podium in GS.

Erik Schlopy was the only other American in the second run. He finished in 19th place overall, which amazingly enough was his best result on that hill - one he readily admits is not his favorite! As for the rest of the guys, they had their share of problems, with a couple of falls, a hooked arm, and some uninspired skiing as evidence.

We just finished a bout of Europa Cups in the Dolomites - in Alta Badia, San Vigilio and Obereggen. They turned out to be very successful for the US team, as Jimmy and Tom scored 2nd and 3rd place results respectively!

I had some difficulties of my own, and my timing in slalom seems to have momentarily flown the coop. I thought I had things figured out while we were in Beaver Creek, but apparently not! Slalom is an event of such minuscule margins and it can go awry for the subtlest of reasons. I watched a bunch of video yesterday though, and I have some ideas as to what has been going on. Thankfully we have a few days still until the next World Cup.

So we're just taking it easy this morning. We all went out and had some pizza last night before hitting the hay for a solid 10 hours. Our plan is to watch the DH race from Val Gardena around lunch-time and then drive the 30 minuntes up to Alta Badia.

The last three days have been really busy with traveling and racing. We packed up and left Antholz on Sunday afternoon for Madonna, where I stayed for only one night as it turned out. Since I fell early in the first run, I decided to pack up my things quickly and attend a Europa Cup race today in Alta Badia. Tom Rothrock and Jimmy Cochran were in a similar position so, after watching the 2nd run of the World Cup on TV for motivation, we all hopped in the car and drove to San Vigilio.

Unfortunately for the effort, today's race didn't go very well for me. There were a variety of contributing factors, but still I must admit that it felt very good to make it past the fifth gate on both of my runs! It was also a treat to test out the injected surface because we have had such little training on hard snow leading into this season. And for the American cause, Jimmy had the standout performance of the day, finishing in 2nd-place after a strong second run.

The speed guys had a DH today over in Val d'Isere and the Austrians finally awoke from the dead, sweeping all three spots on the podium. Walchhofer won by 5 tenths over Fritz Strobl, who in turn was another half second ahead of Grugger.

The weather was really nice, and the hill looked beautifully smooth, but the track there often favors gliders which makes it very hard for the naked eye to tell the difference between a fast run and an anchor-dragging one. As a result, I often find myself just watching the clock on the TV, which isn't very exciting.

Bode managed 7th place and Daron finished in 14th, representing the only US guys in the top-30.

We had another day of training over here in San Vigilio, where we'll spend one more day before driving about 2 hours west to Madonna di Campiglio. Tomorrow Jimmy and I are going to do a few high-quality slalom runs to finalize the set-up on our race skis so that we'll be prepared for the World Cup the next night.

We finally got off the couch this morning and did some training up on top of the Furcalpass near San Vigilio. After a couple of days off, which were on the heels of two full days of traveling, it took a few runs to iron out the kinks in my muscles.


Erik, Dane, Jimmy, Tom and I trained some GS early, and then Jimmy, Tom and I switched over to slalom in the second session. The snow was unfortunately quite soft and the coaches set two tight courses in preparation for Madonna di Campiglio and Alta Badia, all of which made the sessions very challenging.


Madonna stands to be a very interesting race this year because the course-setters will be forced to set 9-10m distances as a result of how the new, increased minimum-gate rule affects shorter hills. It's really a shame because it is such a classic slalom hill, but also because it will probably have a retrogressive effect on everyone's skiing: less arcing and a little more sliding.

It was a long trip to Europe! I got up at the crack of dawn in Beaver Creek on Monday and drove down to Denver, flew to Dulles and then to Munich, and finally took most of the day on Tuesday to drive the 4 hours south to the Dolomites, where I'll spend the next 2 weeks.

I'm here with the technical group, minus Ted who is in Val d'Isere for the Combined event on Sunday. We're staying in a small town outside of Bruneck, which I still don't know the name of because I was passed out in the car from jet lag when we drove in!

After the intense week of Nor-Ams and World Cups in Colorado, the coaches have decided to give us 2 days off before we start training again, so we spent the day today lounging around on the internet, christmas shopping in town, playing games, and relaxing in the hotel's sauna. Coupled with the great Italian food here, it almost feels like a vacation!

Beaver Creek 2005 is in the books now, and it was an historic performance by the US team. With Bode and Daron trading 1st and 2nd places in the DH and GS, and then Ted having a breakthrough 3rd-place result in today's slalom, there was plenty for the home crowd to cheer about.

All of that was in spite of an epic week-long snowstorm which dumped multiple feet of snow on the Vail Valley. At times it was unbelievable that the races were able to be held at all. Needless to say, the race crew did an outstanding job.

I raced in both the GS and the SL, although the GS was a performance I wouldn't mind forgetting! The conditions were challenging with flat light, some ruts and snow which varied from ball bearings to ice, and the combination was too much for me to overcome. I skied poorly the whole way and was a good second off of qualifying for the second run.

There was more for me to be positive about in today's slalom, however, when I skied some sections the way I envisioned and ended up 25th after the first run. Unfortunately, that initial momentum was squashed very quickly, in the 5th gate of the 2nd run to be exact, when I hooked my tip on the outside gate of a hairpin in the steep pitch right out of the start!

That was an infuriating way to end the day, and I was really steaming for a while. After an hour or so passed though, I realized that there were positive aspects of the day - my skiing in general and the fact that I was charging out of the gate in the 2nd run - and I also remembered that slalom ends up like that all too frequently. So I'll just have to keep working in training this week, and look forward to next Monday night's race in Madonna.

We raced in a Nor-Am slalom through a driving blizzard in Keystone, CO today. The snow has not stopped since we returned to Colorado on Saturday, but we had the largest accumulations today - maybe close to 2 ft. on the mountain!

The race actually went off well despite the inclement weather. The snow was hard and aggressive man-made, and the course was set on a long, sustained pitch which proved quite challenging. A bunch of the European teams showed up again to tune-up for the World Cups this weekend in Beaver Creek. In fact, the level of competition could have classified it as a veritable World Cup.

I ended up 17th overall, but I was reasonably happy because I had skied well in the first run (9th place) and I feel as though my slalom is heading in the right direction after struggling with it for the last three months.

Ted Ligety was the toast of the day, however, because of the way he waxed the rest of the field. The scary aspect was that he still made some big mistakes in his 2nd run! I think I can pretty safely say that he's poised for a large breakthrough this year.

Full results can be found here.