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| Alex Leever and Mikaela Shiffrin Gettin' the chains on in Austria |
Hey everyone, sorry I haven’t been able to write recently. With school, traveling, no internet connection, it has been exceedingly difficult to try to get this blog up, but here it is!
Well, the day is over. The week has passed, and suddenly it is the end of the trip. It was more fun than I could have ever expected, even though it ended a little bittersweet. I gave it my all in these races, and that comes with a certain set of risks. I went 110% in my second run of slalom, and pushed it a little too far over the edge. However, I would like to go in chronological order in these things so I’ll start with Thursday and the GS.
The GS was very technical and pushed my abilities probably a little past my comfort zone. When I say this, I mean that I was put a into a little bit of panic mode instead of just skiing like I know how to ski. The first run especially, I was a little tentative. When someone does something that puts them outside their comfort zone, the natural reaction is for their body to try to bring them back in the comfort zone. In skiing, this essentially means bringing your speed to a more comfortable level. On a couple big turns, instead of laying into it, I did a little stivet (a little speed check). This stivet exponentially slowed me down.
These little things added up to a little less speed, a little less aggressiveness, and a slower time. Some of the better guys that hadn’t finished in the super g crushed this race and went all out. I came down after the first run in 9th, and moved back to 16th by the end of the run. I was a little disappointed in my performance but knew that I would go 100% on the second run. I went up and inspected for second run and slipped the course about 2x as fast as I would normally. I get in this zone sometimes that I just know that the line I take won’t matter I’m just going to ski as hard as possible. It started getting really warm before the second run so they delayed the start a little to put down salt. It was getting really slushy and the conditions weren’t looking too good.
They held the race after the first 10 guys to work the course some more so I was excited to get a cleaner course than I might of otherwise. When I got in the gate, I knew what I was going to do and was really confident in my abilities. I charged out of the gate and skied the top section awesome but lost a little time before going into the flats which really slowed me down.
When I got to the finish I was really happy with my skiing, but the time didn’t really agree. I knew where I lost time so I was confident that I could ski with the top guys if I didn’t make that mistake again. It was generally a really fun day and I was super happy to have been able to live that experience and represent the USA!
.)) Alex Leever
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