February has been a busy month with racing World Ski Championships in St Moritz and World Cup in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. It has been a mixed bag of results, highs and lows and some very challenging conditions with snow and weather. A number of races have been cancelled with the lack of snow and the weather has been particularly warm. The World Ski Champs in St Moritz were a great experience with a large field of high calibre athletes. The team was based just outside of St Moritz at Hotel Edelweiss, Sils Maria. Our first race was the Super G and the lighting really made things tough! Very fun course though with 5 built up jumps. I was skiing well on the top half but came into a turn offline and lost all my speed.
We headed back to our base in Austria for a couple of days training before the GS race on the 17th where I started bib 48 having qualified in top 50. I was really happy with the second run of GS which put me into 31st.(28th on the run) just need to do that first run now! Lighting got really flat for the second run with snow falling heavily.
We had to qualify for the slalom with a race at Zuoz on the day before the WSC race where I finished 4th, then had to attend prize giving at Kulm Plaza that evening for the top 6 finishers. A massive crowd who were also gathering for the prize giving of the Women’s slalom followed by bib drawer for the men’s slalom created an amazing atmosphere. The sun came out for the last couple of days in St Moritz and the track was perfect for slalom. Unfortunately I went inside on the steep which wasn’t great, but think the skiing was going well. It’s nice to see how much closer I am than at Beaver Creek World Champs!
After St Moritz we had some races at Leogang, Austria and Golte, Slovenia with races cancelled at both due to poor snow conditions. Super warm some days and raining others meant the snow conditions were difficult so I struggled putting those two runs together again.
From Golte, we headed to Kranjska Gora, Slovenia for World Cup races in a stacked field. Bib 65 for GS and 71 slalom with soft wet snow meant the conditions were pretty rough with it raining heavily the night before the slalom race.
Time now for a day off before we continue on with some FIS races in the region, weather and snow permitting!
Adam Barwood 