Burcin's Blog: European Racing

Hey Guys, It has been a real busy start to the season! I just got back from a trip to Europe, training and racing in Italy and Austria. We arrived in Munich on December 2nd and drove to a small Austrian town named Patsch. Patsch is about 45 minutes from Stubai, where we were training for the first week and then racing slalom. We got some great slalom and GS training on some varying terrain.

Our first race series was at Stubai, two slaloms. The first slalom was canceled and the second slalom was moved to a different trail, which had snow that was much harder than the other trail. Unfortunately, I hipped out the first run and had to hike. After that race, we trained a couple more days at Stubai and then had 2 GS races at Jerzens, another Austrian mountain about an hour and a half from Stubai. It is the home of both Benni Raich and Marlies Schild, two Austrian ski racing icons. It is one of the best GS race hills I have skied, very technical with a lot of terrain and all kinds of pitches. The courses were also very technical, around 24 or 25 meters with a good amount of offset. This is a combination that you rarely see in the US so it was a great learning experience. In both races, I cut my bib in half, moving up around 40 bibs, even though I made fairly large mistakes in both second runs.

Finally, we moved across the boarder into northern Italy for 2 slalom races in the town of Jerzens. The place we races at was called Kruezburg Pass, a tiny mountain with one really wide trail. It was an awesome slalom trail with a 10 gate flat up top and then breaking over to a long consistent pitch with a couple rolls at the bottom. Unfortunately, both races I got a little unlucky and hooked a tip at the top of the pitch both days. It was pretty disappointing because I had been skiing slalom well in training but I just couldn’t put it into the races.

To finish the trip, the day after our final race, we headed over to Alta Badia, for the World Cup GS. The atmosphere was awesome and the race was awesome to watch. The US team had a great first run, with Ligety winning, and Bode, Tommy Ford, and Tim Jitloff all putting it in the top 30. It looked like Ted was in line for yet another GS victory after dominating first run but Max Blardone used the fuel of the home Italian crowd to throw down a really fast second run to grab the win. Although it was disappointing, it was a really fun experience to see the highest level of our sport in action. After the race we drove back to Munich and stayed the night because our flight was early the next morning. After a little trouble with our connecting flight in Newark, we finally got back to Boston after a exciting and fun, but long and tiring trip.

After 2 days of rest I headed off to one more race before the holidays, a GS at Attitash, New Hampshire. I skied a little conservative first run but was in solid position, 4th, for second run. After a decent second run I secured 2nd for j2’s and my first overall podium at a FIS race at 3rd. I also scored a 67, which was a good way to come back to the States. Anyway, I after a busy December as you can see, I have some time off before I start training again on the 28th, with a fun USSA race on the 30th.

Good luck to all other SRD racers and happy holidays!!

.)) Kyle Burcin