Thursday, December 9, 2010

More downhills

Have I said before that there are no great young downhillers? Yes I have. It takes so long to perfect the line and truly learn/internalize these courses. Scott almost had a career day -- but he didn't.

Now don't get me wrong. He skied well enough to finish 20 of 99, score FIS and NORAM points, beat the entire US "D" Team and alot of the rest of the team team. However, he didn't win. All week long (and for that matter, last year) Scott has been perplexed by one turn called "Fall Away." This turn requires one to dive towards the protective fence going about 70 mph, stand on the left ski and loop back across the hill and over a knoll and and commit to a right foot turn on a sidehill. The move from the fence to the knoll is a "blind" move. He's given up time there every day, but today he was dead on. I had him ahead of the field 2/3 of the way down the course. I was getting ready for the awards ceremony. However it wasn't to be. He came into the turn at the base of the hill and pressured as he had the first four days, except this time he was going about 20 mph faster and before he realized the problem (1/100th of a second) he was looping wide and the race was over.

It took Scott a good 20 minutes to be sociable in the finish arena. He was obviously reliving the 1/100th of a second over and over. He just called me and told me he's alternately pumped and disappointed in the result, but he now knows he can beat all these guys. Now there's something to build upon!

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