GMVS in Italy: Baseball, Rollerskiing, Kayaking

A happy group on the water! Make sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page for more kayaking photos.

It’s been a whirlwind here in Italy, with a great variety of training. We are about to drive up to the Stelvio Glacier for our first day on snow, but I thought I should put up a few pictures to show what we have been doing in the past few days.

We have had great collaboration with the Italians this year, and have joined them for several workouts. We skied up to Schlinig with the biathletes, then showed them how to play baseball on what might be the most beautiful field on which baseball has ever been played.

With an incredible backdrop looking toward the Ortler and the other 3000 meter peaks of the region, we played at least nine innings with a lot of home runs and a lot of excitement.

The Italian Biathlon coach, Andy.

Devlin looks on with three Italian teammates.

The next day we drove down the valley to work on skate technique and drills on some flatter terrain. We finished the workout with a bunch of sprint starts, working up from 80% to 100% by the end. We saw a group of 50 kids under the age of ten on roller skis, who were taking a Saturday morning cruise on the bike path with the Prad Junior Ski Club.

One of the highlights of the trip is going kayaking on Lake Rechen near the Austrian border. The Ortler dominates the landscape and the chilly water is always an unbelievable blue. We headed out to watch a hoard of kiteboarders slicing and dicing midway up the lake, then turned back for home.