Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Silver Lining

Day one at J2 Nationals started great. Scott was "cookin" during warm-ups and his head was in the right place. He felt it and I truly believed a slalom win was in the cards today. Unfortunately, he straddled a gate the first run and hiked a l-o-n-g way. He was 60th going into the final run.

Scott was disappointed, but he's grown a lot mentally in the past two years. After a brief rest, he went out to warm-up for the next run. His question to me before the second run was, "Do you think I can win it?" I told him "No, but you can have fun trying. Impress me." And so he did.

The snow today was soft, and the ruts were easily knee to thigh deep by the time Scott ran. He exploded out of the start and never let off. At one point he was five feet in the air, but he landed and knifed the run top to bottom. It looked more like an Olympic bump run than a slalom. He didn't win the run, but he was in the top 15, only a little way off. The crowd rewarded him with an ovation and he ended the day on a high note. Something to take into tomorrow...

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