Lake Louise, Alberta – I’ve been pretty calm about finishing second, first and second in downhill and super-G over the weekend, including a win in one of the two downhills, but I am really happy.
I’ve never had so many podiums in a row before. It gave me a lot of confidence because two of the races were in really tough conditions – windy and snowing – and it’s not easy to be consistent in those conditions. I was really psyched.
I didn’t ski that great in giant slalom and slalom the week before in Aspen, so it felt really good to do well.
I won Saturday’s race by 1.33 seconds, which is a lot in downhill, especially on glider’s course like Lake Louise. I was amazed.
We had to deal with temperatures that were 20-30 degrees below zero. One day the lift wouldn’t run in the morning because it was so cold and everything was delayed an hour.
I put Vaseline on my face and it worked fine. I didn’t get frostbite.
A lot of girls covered their faces with white medical tape, but when I tried that it irritated my face when I peeled it off. I wore a face mask for the training runs, but I couldn’t see very well. It was riding up into my goggles, so I decided just to go with a lot of Vaseline.
The first day I finished second behind Germany’s Maria Riesch, my best friend on the tour. That was really cool because she’s been injured most of the past two seasons. Two seasons ago she blew out her left knee in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. She blew out the other one last year in Aspen, her first race back. Last year I spent Christmas with her family, and the year before she spent Christmas with my family.
So now we sit and wait to find out where we will race next because our scheduled races in Europe have been canceled for lack of snow. We are supposed to find out Wednesday what the plan is, but so far it’s not looking good.
We hear they’re finally blowing snow in St. Moritz, Switzerland, so maybe we can race there. There’s also rumors about racing at Panorama, British Columbia, or coming back to Lake Louise.
It’s really unfortunate the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association was unable to find sponsorship so the canceled races could be relocated to Colorado. I would have loved to race there again. It would be great for the sport, but unfortunately it couldn’t be done, so I’m flying back home to Park City, Utah. In some ways it would be good for me to stay home and rest my injured knee, but I’d like to race again.
