WHISTLER, British Columbia — I skipped last week’s race, a slalom in Croatia, to take some time off at home in Park City, Utah, before this week’s races on the 2010 Olympic courses here.
There was quite a surprise waiting for me and my husband when we got home, after being gone for more than two months.
The snow in Park City was waist deep, and when we got to our house, snowplows had created a 10-foot wall of snow sealing off our driveway. We got there at 10 o’clock at night after traveling all day from Europe, and had to leave our car on the street, trudging through waist-deep snow to our front door.
We pretty much were stuck in our house for two days, until a friend with a front-end loader could come and clear a path to our driveway. There was so much snow it was difficult even for a front-end loader to remove it.
It was great to get some time off and sleep in my own bed. I did a lot of laundry and I got in two good days of training before flying here Sunday.
Skipping the Zagreb slalom was a calculated risk, but it paid off when Austria’s Nicole Hosp failed to finish that race, meaning she earned no points and we remained tied in the World Cup overall standings.
That sort of thing happens when you’re competing for the overall. You might miss an opportunity somewhere, but everyone else at the top of the standings is bound to miss some, too. Nobody has a perfect season, capitalizing on every opportunity.
I could have gone all the way down there to Zagreb, prepared the best that I could, and gone out in the first run. I decided I was better off skipping a race and getting a week to rest before the final push of the season. You have to weigh the costs and benefits, and at this time of year, it was definitely more beneficial to go home and recharge.
My chances of winning the overall are becoming realistic. The schedule is equally divided with five speed races (which favor me) and five technical races (which favor Hosp). There also are a couple of combineds — including one this week — that favor me.
The key for me is to keep skiing the way I’ve been skiing, to capitalize as much as I can on the speed events and the combined, and to take some risks in slalom and giant slalom to get some good points there. Just finishing slaloms and GS races, getting a few measly points here and there, isn’t enough. I need to keep charging.
Lindsey Vonn, a former Ski Club Vail member who is tied for the World Cup overall lead, reports regularly from the tour in collaboration with Denver Post ski writer John Meyer.
