Sunday, December 15, 2013

Not Quite There. Yet.






After some days and some illness in the north country of Scandinavia, it was fortunately time to head back to Davos, Switzerland. The trip to Norway wasn't totally without redemption, as a top-10 in the Norwegian Cup got me some World Cup starts in Davos and Asiago, Italy. Sometimes the north can be nice, but this time I was not sad to leave at all.

With the approaching days, I would recover and get in a handful of good training sessions.


Here's one of those days, in bluebird conditions with the Estonian sprinters and the Swiss Power Sprint team. Here, we are getting ready for an impromptu prologue as part of a Wednesday form-sharpening workout. I felt great, and thought I was ready for the big race over the weekend. I'm missing the shape, and maybe more the right feeling at the moment, though. On Sunday, I missed racing in the rounds by just under 2 seconds. It's not an incredible amount, but in this game every second -- or every hundredth of a second -- counts. My flatmate Mauro Gruber missed scoring his first-ever World Cup points by the smallest of margins, one one-hundredth of a second.


Fortunately, I get one more weekend of chances in Asiago to demonstrate what I've been working on and perfecting all these days, months, and years. This picture of an eagle's impression captured in the snow shows what I look to do next time, be an opportunist with the opportunities I get.