What an amazing week of World Cup racing in Bansko, Bulgaria. Probably one of the women’s most well
attended World Cup of the season and uniquely a crowd that cheered for everyone. There was one Bulgarian racer competing in
this event and the noise and support that was shown while she was racing down
the course made me realize the honour it is to compete at home in front of thousands
of people who are there to share the moment with you! The energy in the stands
and on the side of the course was a great incentive to race fast and well!!!
In my last blog I mentioned that the Bulgarian track was “technical”,
well, that was definitely an understatement. I can honestly say that I have
never skied a track so technically challenging.
It did not feel like a downhill and unfortunately it seems that the new
age downhill tracks are losing the lustre of speed, jumps and big sweeping
turns. I think that I am in the midst of
a “racing” revolution. It breaks my
heart though because when I signed up for downhill racing, it was for the whole
package; the speed the air and the risk.
The race in Bansko was bad for women’s ski racing, I believe, because it
did not make us look like good World class racers and it was uneventful and
boring to watch on television. Our
course was 24 seconds slower than the Europa-Cup men’s race held the previous
year which is a small indication to the potential of the course opposed to the reality.
There is much talk and speculation going on right now regarding the new courses
and I suppose we will just have to wait and see what the outcome will be. I
know that the athletes definitely want the old downhill tracks back and the way
of setting the course also back but politics and safety seem to take priority. There are many different opinions and ideas
that have to be considered and studied before a consensus is made.
I do not want it to appear that I am blaming the course for
my results! I take full ownership for my skiing and thus my results. In the
first downhill I lost my outside ski on the most challenging turn of the course
and by some miracle managed to pull off the turn without falling, though I didn’t
really believe that I could do that at the time. As I have said previously, confidence is a
huge factor in downhill and with having another “did not finish” it added to
the baggage of the rest of the season.
The following day was better conditions by far and I ended up with a 22nd
place; definitely not something to write home about. That was the last downhill of the season
before finals and I currently sit in 14th place. My incentive for finals is big because I need
to finish in the top 10 in order to keep my GMC Acadia! The following day was the Super-G race and it
was so refreshing and enjoying to ski.
The course was set nicely in the fall-line and it was a “feel good”
course. The positive factor being that
it made for a fair and exciting race, the difficult factor being that you
needed to be perfect to do well. I
achieved another “grey zone” finish of 14th place. I was happy because I really enjoyed racing
that day but was disappointed that I was not on the podium or in the top
10. This season has really been one of challenge
after challenge. With goals and dreams
of being on the podium multiple times, it is a little hard to swallow when you
are fighting for top 15 finishes but that is sport and it is better to happen
this year as opposed to next. Our team
did nothing different this season than last but this year we had more adversity
and less momentum.
I will finish off this blog with a day in the life of Emily
heading back to central Europe from Bulgaria!! After the Super-g race we had about 3 hours to
kill before getting on the police escorted buses to start the journey home. A
couple of us decided that a game of bowling was in order, as there was an alley
in our hotel and we had on ongoing competition throughout the week. The games ran a little late….ooops….and we had
to do the walk of shame back to the buses where everyone was waiting for us to
load!! The 3 hour bus ride flew by and
before we knew it we were back at Sofia airport. During the bus ride I came to
the dreaded realization that I had lost my car keys. I have never lost my keys
before and knew that this was definitely not the ideal time to do so for the
first time. As it was Sunday night I
also knew that there was not much to do until the next day. The world cup had
chartered a plane for us so the whole plane was filled with the world Cup which
was quite comical. We took off from
Sofia at 9:00 pm and started the flight to Munich. Landing seemed to be going according to plan
until we made a very quick assent just before touching down. The plane became awfully silent as everyone stared
around in a concerned and ominous way. Heavy fog was the reason for the quite
assent and in the end we were rerouted to Stuttgart. After waiting around for
more than an hour it was decided to spend the night at a hotel at the
airport. We caught a bus to Munich in
the morning and arrived at the Movenpick Hotel with 2.5hrs of driving under my
belt already. Now the key problem enters the equation. By this time I realize that I have to drive
120km northeast of Munich to pick up the spare set of keys. I end up renting a
little Panda Fiat and started the lovely drive northwards. I arrived in Regensberg, picked up the keys
and heading straight back to the Movenpick Hotel. By this time I have almost 500km under my
belt and I am not done yet. I return the rental car, pick up my car and start
the drive to our home base in Kirchberg, Austria (another 1.5hrs). There I drop the car off, get in with one of
my coaches and head to St. Anton, Austria (another 2.5hrs) in order to race a
FIS GS race the following day. I think that we pulled in around 7 pm which was
11 hours after leaving Stuttgart! It was a lesson well learned and I doubt that
I will lose my keys in the near future, now the problem being that I am
paranoid of losing them!!!
I hope that all is well in your lives!!!
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