Torino here I come!

Bill Marolt made it official last night when he announced the 2006 Olympic team from Las Vegas, NV (press release).

It's still unbelievable to me that I actually qualified this time around because of what I've been through in the last year. From switching skis in the middle of the last season to being told that my career was nearly over exactly one year ago in Schladming. Then funding part of my way this year and yet still having to cope with some early season lackluster results. All of which has made it an incredible ride!

The last three and a half weeks in particular were quite a trip, with four World Cup slaloms and the last three Olympic slalom spots wide open. The contest was basically between Bode, Tom Rothrock, Jimmy Cochran, Erik Schlopy and myself. Despite Bode's trouble making it to the finish line, it was always widely assumed that he would be named by discretion based on past years' results. So that left two spots for the rest of us, and after Adelboden I had a 17th, Tom had a 16th, and Jimmy had a 15th. The criteria read that we would either have to score 1 podium, 2 top-10s, 3 top-20s, or it would go to total World Cup points in that discipline.

The situation remained the same following Wengen, when none of us scored a result there, which left Kitzbühel and Schladming, two races in three days, to decide the outcome for Torino. I finished 20th at the Hahnenkamm, giving me a little breathing room but it still didn't decide anything. Many people asked me then, "so, does this qualify you," and all I could say was, "we'll see after Schladming," with a hopeful smile, knowing full well that I still had to perform strongly there.

To want something so badly, and to have everything riding on 100 seconds of performance, is one of the hardest things I've ever been through. All I kept saying to myself was that it was going to come down to skiing, plain and simple. The result were merely an outcome. After my second run in Schladming, when I executed my skiing well, I knew I could finally rest my mind knowing that my 20th place had qualified me objectively for the Olympics. A relief for sure, but what an amazing ride!

Schladming

What a race!

50,000 fans lining the hill, racing under the lights, bullet-proof snow conditions, and an awesomely challenging hill to boot. Is that not heaven for a ski racer?

Granted I had some problems on my first run, but I was lucky enough to qualify 30th and therefore start 1st on the second run. With a second chance, I did my best to take advantage of the clean track. The conditions were so good, however, that I'm not sure it was such a great advantage over the rest of the field! Still I had the 9th fastest second run and moved up to 19th place overall.

The best news was yet to come though. After a late dinner back at our hotel, the coaches announced the Olympic team and I was named for the slalom!

In the end it wasn't a bad evening at all.

Hahnenkamm Slalom

The weekend of racing in Kitzbühel finished up yesterday with a slalom on the Ganslernhang, just to the skier's left of the downhill's Zielschuss.

The fact that the trail is next to the downhill is no mere coincidence because the terrain is just as treacherous. It also falls away constantly to the left and even offers an uphill section late in the second run. And that's not even mentioning the 30,000 people who line the hill and pack the finish area.

To top it off, yesterday's two courses were among the toughest in recent memory on the World Cup. The first run had 8 combinations, including a nasty sidehill flush, and the second run featured turns that were exceedingly tight and unforgiving the whole way down.

As a result, I was quite happy with my 20th-place performance. I skied well both runs, technically and tactically, and was pleased with my execution through such tough conditions.

It was also cool to see JP Vidal win again, for the first time since the 2002 Olympics. When he's skiing well he exudes a lot of enthusiasm in his style, almost as though he's floating from gate to gate. It was also refreshing to see Reinfried Herbst finish 2nd because he's been an outsider on the Austrian team this year, paying for his own training, and now he has very nearly qualified for their Olympic team!

Westendorf

Last night the annual FIS slalom was held in the little town of Westendorf, just 15 minutes down the road from Kitzbühel.

It's amazing how the race has grown since the first time I was there almost 10 years ago. While it has always been an event that the top racers use as a tune-up for the real deal on Sunday, it has really taken off since they turned it into a night race roughly 5 years ago.

Now there are about 2,500 spectators, sponsor tents surrounding the finish, and an animated, knowledgeable announcer. It has become an event, a party even, with kids and ski racing fans lining the fences all the way up the hill. In fact, some even hike all the way to the start to see where the action all begins!

The field in this year's race was especially packed, with half of the top-30 in the world there, including Ted Ligety, Rainer Shoenfelder, Mario Matt, and Kalle Palander. The courses were set very fast so there was plenty of high speed action, most notably in the second run when a number of guys failed to finish.

Akira Sasaki of Japan was the eventual winner and I ended up finishing 11th, despite some big mistakes, but was really pleased with the way my brand new skis felt. Fischer just made a prototype in the last few days, which seems to be bending up and accelerating from turn to turn really well.

It's too early to say for sure, and I'm looking to get some good training on them tomorrow, but I hope it continues to work well for the upcoming races!

No love in Wengen

It felt great to to be racing in Wengen again today. With the sharp
terrain and very steep pitches, twisting in and out of the old hay barns
on the side of the hill, it is my favorite hill on the World Cup.

Unfortunately though, it wasn't very kind to me today. I had difficulty rolling my ski up on edge at the top part of the course and then shot myself
wide of a gate as I crested the big knoll, all of which cost me 1.65
seconds at the split timer. From that point down I was able to let my skis
run more and minimized my deficit, but I was still 2.22 seconds out at
the finish, which ended up being 17 hundredths and four places too slow
for a second run.

My feelings were ambivalent following the run. I was bitterly disappointed
that I failed to perform to my abilities, especially on a hill that I
absolutely love skiing on. And all of that following the momentum I had
created for myself in Adelboden. However, I felt positive and
encouraged about my 16th-fastest bottom split, and the fact that even on
a disjointed and uninspired run I was still very close to making the
cut. I'd like to focus on the latter as I move forward because there's
nothing I can do to take back the performance itself.

Tomorrow we're driving over to Kitzbühel for the week. We'll do some
training in the area and compete in the FIS races in Kirchberg and
Westendorf. It will be a good chance to dial my skiing in further so
that I will be prepared to fully attack the Hahnenkahm and rise to the
occasion there.

After three days of training in Adelboden, we're heading out of town today and making our way up to Wengen for the races this weekend. There will be a combined event on Friday, downhill on Saturday, and the slalom on Sunday.

Training has been great here, with near-perfect conditions and a fast turn-around on the new high-speed quad they put in this year. It was probably the best training we've had thus far!

Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes! I had a great day yesterday, and capped it off with some tasty cake that Marina sent me via the local bakery.

Today was another exciting day here in Adelboden. The slalom ran as tough as it always does, with the dramatic contrast between the rolling terrain up top and the near-vertical pitch on the bottom covered in blue-ice. It's even more difficult than the GS because you have to make twice the amount of turns on such critical terrain, which doubles the chances of an explosion! Needless to say, the extreme conditions caused many in the field to do just that. And even the ones who made it all the way, excepting Giorgio Rocca, had to make their fair share of recoveries along the way.

After some acrobatics on the upper section of the first run, and a hefty 2.2 second deficit at the split timer as a result, I skied the bottom 10th fastest and qualified for the second run in 21st place. The second run was better top to bottom for me, with no major mistakes and the 7th fastest time on the run. All of which left me in 17th place overall. It was a good solid result to start the month on, and I was psyched to have finally earned some slalom points!

Still, the major highlight of the day for the American cause was Ted Ligety finishing 2nd, despite a sizeable mistake at the bottom of the last pitch. He one-upped his previous best 3rd place results from earlier this year, and confirmed the fact that he should be the one to end Rocca's reign - whenever the Italian chooses to relinquish it!

Adelboden: WC GS points!

Today's race was a watershed for my career: after years of trying to make a breakthrough on the World Cup GS circuit, I finally scored my first points with an 18th place result here in Adelboden!
It's hard to relate how satisfying it felt after working hard for many years, and yet coming up short so many times. The difference today was that I was able to ski much closer to the way I have in training, and in lower level GS races, but haven't been able to match on the World Cup up to now.
It was also cool to have such a result happen on the most legendary of all the GS hills, one they've been racing on for 50 years, with the two ridiculously steep pitches and all the whacked-out terrain. I love having the chance to compete on such hills because they force you as an athlete to rise to the occasion technically and tactically.
Anyway, enough gloating for one day! Tomorrow there's another race here in Adelboden, a slalom on the bottom of the GS hill, and I need to get a some rest.

The 2006 race season is starting in Adelboden, Switzerland, with a GS tomorrow and a slalom on Sunday. Most of Europe was blanketed with snow over the holidays, so there is fresh whiteness everywhere. And what's more, they installed a new high-speed quad over the race hill here, which almost makes it seem like we're skiing in the new millenium - even though the race hill is actually just a groomed cow pasture!

In all seriousness though, we free-skied on the hill today and the surface felt quite good. It was injected recently, so it's hard and a bit bumpy for good measure. The most interesting aspect of the skiing this morning was that it took place from 9:00-9:45, while the race won't start until 10:30. As a result, the light was so flat that everyone was gettting compressed and then literally flying off of the natural terrain in the hill! Things should be different tomorrow, however, when the sun is up.