It has been a while since my last update on the site. Things have been very busy the last couple weeks since my return from our camp in France. I have worked many days to make some money, but at the same time had some pretty heavy training to do as well. In that time since France, our team had Large hill Nationals in Park City, Utah. The level was pretty nice for USA skiers. I was happy with my results as I wasn’t jumping especially well in the time before nationals. I finished 9th and was happy to see my brother finish on the podium for a special jumping event.
Most of our team except for a few are in Europe now for Summer Grand Prix. This is one of the main focuses for myself for the summer. Grand Prix for those who don’t know is a Summer world cup. Many of the top skiers show up to see how their level of skiing is and what progress they have made.
Oberwiesenthal, GER
Our first competitions were in Oberwiesenthal, GER. Last year we had the same competitions but with much harder conditions. This year we had better weather but pretty tough wind. The first day was a standard NC competition. One jump and a 10k Race. I was happy with my result as I finished a respectable 20th place, 6th fastest time.
The second competition was a new format that the FIS wanted to test. It is a called a penalty race. The hill is broken up in to 3meter sections with each section being a certain amount of penalty laps. The point being the longer you jump the less amount of penalty laps you had to do. Unfortunately I didn’t have the best of jumps, causing me to do 5 extra laps which take about 20-25 seconds a lap. I still skied fast, but lost a lot of time in the penalty laps, only allowing me to finish 36th. Billy Demong on the other hand had a much better day finishing 3rd for our first podium of the year.
Liberec, CZE
Now we are in Liberec, CZE. Tomorrow (8/31/11) we will have a standard one jump/10k race for a Grand prix event. I fell like I have been jumping better and better, so I will look for better results tomorrow.
Stay tuned for updates.
Taylor
