First Period WC

Even though Davos is a regular and reoccurring stop on the World Cup it was a blast to arrive this year and settle into what feels like home at the Hotel Kulm. I think last week was special for everyone because it has been a few years now since we experienced incredible skiing in Davos.  Far too often we are skiing a man made, white ribbon of snow here but not this year!

I was stoked for the conditionscand spent the first few days of training in Davos away from the race loops and climbing up some of the tourist tracks into the valleys that stretch up from town. It’s definitely one of the coolest places to put in a 2-3 hour ski in the sun.

As usual the race weekend came up quickly and Saturday’s sprint was another really successful day for the US team and SMST2.  Sprint day delivered some of the best results so far this year for the SMS team including a near miss on the podium for Jessie and strong results all around. The day was capped off by Kikkan finishing third and showing her years of experience racing the Davos course and adding another notch to her long list of podiums there.

I think everyone had a little extra motivation this past weekend because Davos also brought in some of our biggest US Team supporters.  Tiger Shaw (US Ski Team CEO) and his wife Kristen were in attendance at the races along with Liz Arky and Bill Green. This was a special weekend because Liz and Bill are the two people who were the biggest supporters of the Wax Truck project and helped us make it a reality. With everyone there the wax truck was officially celebrated and we enjoyed a Sunday night dinner with Liz, Bill, and the US Ski Team staff.

This week the World Cup rolls on to Toblach Italy however much of the SMST2 team will be racing in St. Ulrich Austria instead at the OPA cup series. OPA races are the continental cup racing circuit for central Europe, just like the Supertour is for us in the US, and they tend to be very competitive. Many of the World Cup sprinters from Germany, France, Italy, and Austria etc. will be here competing.

This is why it was a pretty easy decision for Sophie, Simi, Julia, and I to take a weekend off from the World Cup since there will be high level sprinting and distance racing here on OPA. Coach Pat is also here helping for the weekend so it will be really fun for all of us to touch base with him and get in 3 hard races. It will kind of feel like SMST2 vs. central Europe here this weekend! Racing kicks off Friday with a Skate sprint, distance classic Saturday, distance skate Sunday.