World Championship Cities

I woke up to rain and wind here in Ramsau.

I was totally prepared to head up to the glacier, but Trond had something to say about that. He said, “I’ve lived here a long time, and it would be stupid to go up there today. If you want to go up because of the novelty of bad weather and to prove your tough that’s fine. But if you want to become a better ski racer you should do something down here. It would be just as productive to go up as it would be to go to Southern Spain and sit on the beach.” So, I went for a two and a half hour run instead. I don’t change my workouts very often, but I felt today was a good day to heed the advice.

In the afternoon the weather cleared up, so we went down to Schladming, a town just down the hill from Ramsau.

I am a huge fan of sports. I enjoy watching the best athletes in the World compete in basically any sport. On that note, I enjoy going to big sporting venues, even when there are no competitions going on. When I was in New York last year, I made a point of walking around the Billy Jean King National Tennis Center and the new Mets stadium.

For that reason, I love being here in the Ramsau/Schladming area. Ramsau was the site of the 1999 Nordic World Ski Championships.

Here I am at the World Championship finish line:

And Schladming will be, this coming winter, the host of the Alpine World Ski Championships.

Last season, my teammates and I were training in Ramsau during a World Cup Night Slalom in Schladming. We went down to watch because we knew several of the athletes competing. It was an incredible event, with tens of thousands of spectators. Here is a picture taken that night.

Today, I took a picture from roughly the same location. It looks a little different in the summer:

Lastly, I was impressed with how many signs were up advertising the upcoming World Championships in Schladming. It is going to be an incredible event.

This afternoon I went for a roller ski on the Ramsau Roller Ski Track. It’s always fun being in Europe because there are so many roller ski tracks. Roller skiing is more fun when you’re doing it on a course with terrain changes that feels like a ski trail than it is on a highway with lots of cars and a constant grade. I always love checking out new roller ski tracks. Ramsau’s track was really fun with steep uphills, fast downhills, and lots of turns.