Today we were previewing the classic course, where Wednesday's mass start was supposed to be held. It had set up really nicely overnight, and was a really hard track - Awesome! I was skiing with the J2s, and we were kicking like mules on KR40, previewing the course and practicing the downhills. There are some hairy downhills but they're nothing you can't get down safely - some of the younger skiers preferred sliding some of the corners rather than step turning them, and thats just fine. Anyway, we were getting all psyched up for the mass start, practicing downhills in groups and throwing elbows and all the other intricacies of mass starts.
Apparently, some time after we'd finished our course tour, the Midwestern team's J1 girls went down the first hill, and one girl fell and the rest of the team ran into her and she tore her ACL, or did something of that magnitude to her knee. This sent the Intermountain coach into a frenzy, and he made enough noise that he managed to convince the technical delegate that the course was unsafe for a mass start. Which is ridiculous, because in an individual start, skiers will be going way more aggressively on those downhills, trying to eke out every second.
Needless to say, team New England is pretty pissed about that turn of events - we do really well in head-to-head races, and its not like we won't clean up tomorrow, but it just sucks that people are such whiners. Its a ski race, for god's sake - the downhills are SUPPOSED to be fast and technical. Gah.
Anyway, the kids are taking this in stride, and they're pumped to rock it tomorrow. So am I!
Beautiful klister skiing up here, you can keep your extra blue days, I'll take sunny klister days. Too bad my camera battery died and I didn't bring the charger or I'd have photos.
3 comments:
/elitism on
Remember how the hills at the Birkie were snowplowed down to ice even though they were basically flat and straight compared to the trails in New England?
Humph. Midwesterners.
/elitism off
Our college-aged girls from the Midwest aren't good at downhills. Even after a couple seasons skiing out east. I can't imagine what the J2's are like.
I'd do Colin's elitism thing but it wouldn't be original.
The funny thing is that it was the Intermountain coach who put up the big stink about it all.
Its not like this course was just thrown together - its an FIS homologated race course, and went through four years of permitting and stuff. Apparently its good enough for world class biathletes, but not good enough for juniors.
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