RESPECT

After he won the World Cup GS in  Alta Badia yesterday, An Austrian Eurosport reporter asked Ted Ligety what were his plans,” I am going to go home and ski some powder and take out my snowmobiles.”  That really resonated with me as being the US Ski Team in a nutshell.  We are known for being more laid back and enjoying skiing for all of its benefits rather then just the racing side.  The only difference with Ted right now is that he is still laid back and humble but he is absolutely dominating the Giant Slalom World Cup.

Ted just won his third straight World Cup GS race, a feat that, as far as I can tell, has only been done by four men in the last 20 years.  The men to accomplish the feat are Alberto Tomba, Michael Von Gruenigen, twice, Hermann Maier and now Ted.  The only man to Go 4 in a row was Tomba back in 1991, a streak that spanned two seasons.

Giant Slalom is the core of ski racing.  It is the event that requires the most finesse and the most control.  All great champions have had GS success in their careers, Hermann Maier, the greatest of our generation,  used to crush the event. Bode Miller was at his most impressive, in my opinion, when he could put time on everybody in else in GS in between massive mistakes and still win races.  Michael Von Gruenigen was like a dancer on skis and was by the far the most consistent GS champion in my memory.   

It is an event that is not determined by fast skis or the size of the competitors, it is straight up skill and in that department Ted has been putting on a clinic this year.  

I am really stoked for Ted and his humble attitude, his skiing has been a great motivator for our team in a season where most of us have struggled to find our stride.  Keep it up buddy, it is fun to watch!

The FroMan

Robert Frohlich, a friend of my family and a friend to Lake Tahoe passed recently after battling cancer for the past two and a half years.  I first met Fro when he laid the tile in the entryway of my families house in Ward Canyon when I was 8 years old.  At that point in my life I was really falling in love with skiing and I remember religiously taking the Tahoe-Truckee weekly from my Dad to find the frequent articles that Fro would write about the local ski community.

As I grew older I sometimes became the subject of his articles because of my ski racing success and I was always proud to be mentioned by him in the paper.

I once had a long stretch of time where I could not ski because of knee surgeries.  I remember seeing Fro in the village at Squaw where I was becoming a too frequent customer of Mamasake where he worked serving drinks.  We had a beer together and it was all fun, but the second time in less than a week that I set up to his bar he was not smiling.  He asked me what I was doing and if I ever wanted to accomplish my dream of returning to the US Ski Team.  It was a poignant moment because I knew that he was proud of me for what I had accomplished and he had the heart to tell me that he thought I was about to throw it all away.  At that time it had a big effect on me and I credit Fro for helping me buckle down and become strong enough to overcome my injuries.

The next season I came back strong I still have an article where he claimed my World Cup Downhill victory in Chamonix was the most notable accomplishment of 2008 for Tahoe based athletes.   Coming from Fro it was real!

The last time I saw Fro was a few months back.  We talked a lot about skiing and how he was sad that he had to leave these beautiful mountains behind, he knew he was on his way out.  We were mutual fans of each other and we made a trade that day, I gave him my Nike puffy jacket from the Vancouver Olympic Games and he gave me one of his rugby Jerseys from his days at the University of North Carolina.  We snapped a couple of photos, he kept telling me how beautiful how my girlfriend Anna was, he always loved the ladies!

I will miss Fro, as will many.  The way he could put into words what people were feeling was amazing to me.  I will be traveling with his rugby jersey in my bag this year on the World Cup tour and every time I look at it I will remember the FroMan and ski a little bit faster!

Tahoe Ski Report

Took a little hike this morning with my friends Jesse and Bernie.  It snowed two nights ago and has remained really cold so we decided to go explore and see if those peaks were really as snowy as they appeared to be.

As we left the road it did not look promising, a lot of cars were laughing as they saw us booting up.

As we continued on the snow did not get much deeper but we were treated to some nice views!

At the top the snow was DEEP........ relatively speaking!

So as it turned out we got in a few turns and then of course we were stoked on it so we tried to milk it all the way back to the car which turned into a great stone grinding for all of our skis.  But as Jesse said today "skis are tools" and as such they are meant to be used and abused as long as they can get us to where we want to go.

More snow is in the forecast so hopefully I can get some more turns at home before heading out to Colorado next week where the race training begins.

Go Giants!!

Home

Fall is a great season.  I am enjoying being home for a couple of weeks before we head out to Colorado to start our real winter season.  I am a little jealous of the other teams who are skiing on the glaciers in Europe at the moment but that is only because they are skiing, I am not envious of their location because Fall in the Sierras is a great time.  Having to scrape frost off of your windshield in the morning but also being able to mountain bike and fish is a good combo.  Here are a few pics from an extreme hiking mission with Daron today he was scoping out lines for the winter time up on Donner Summit.

I have one of those new I-pod touches that takes photos and that is what these shots are from, pretty impressive I guess for something that I thought only played music!

Anyway I am feeling pretty happy today that I live in a place where you can get out into the mountains at a moments notice.  I am also itching for winter time.  I am doing my best to train hard these next few weeks before we kick off the World Cup DH season in Lake Louise next month.

Ready Golf

Fall in Truckee has been great this past week, some rainstorms made for stellar mountain biking conditions and now the sun is out with snow on the peaks!  A few guys made it out to Freel Peak in South shore for some early season turns and it looked pretty impressive for what it was.  Check it out here. http://www.unofficialsquaw.com/index.php/home/4/5873.html

My old buddy Prado is in town and we went out to play a round of golf at the local course in Truckee.  Prado was proudly sporting his new denim Niners jacket with a leather collar.  It is one of his most prized possessions

Striking a pose

Prado "letting the big dog eat." He "was not going to hit it too hard, not going to hit it too light, gonna hit it just right!"

He actually did hit a few just right and claimed it was his best golf game in years.

Any comments are greatly appreciated!

Enjoy the Fall and let go Giants!

WInter is approaching

Summer is only a memory these days.  After returning home from NZ camp number two of the summer it has been nothing but rain and chilly temps in Truckee.  There is a healthy layer of snow on the top of Mt. Rose and some surrounding mountains and even though we just returned from the Southern winter I am looking forward to getting a bit of our own.

I thought I would post a few of my favorite pictures from this summer.  I am not much of a picture taker so by favorites I mean the pictures I took this summer.

 I had a bummer of a Spring because of a nagging back injury, so unfortunately I had to cancel plans to go skiing in AK but I guess it was for the best.  By July I was back on my feet and got to head up to Big Sky Country for a float trip with a bunch dudes that included my brother in law Trevor and his famed old man Rob who only packed five dew rags and a pair of red shorts for the trip.

Rainbow over the Smith River

One of the few fish that I managed to catch this summer!

Sunset over Prosser Lake, classic summer evening

View from the top of Coronet Peak.  New Zealand camp #1

I made the switch to Rossignol skis this summer, they are great but unfortunately at NZ camp #2 they did a lot of sitting on the wall, just waiting to be loved

A round of golf in New Hampshire with Nolan Kasper and Mike Kenney.  uhhh yeah

Ok well I guess I will have to spend some time and learn how to run this old blogger unit.  I just threw all those pics up, I know they are random but I like em.  Next time maybe I can formulate a plot and have a reason to write?

Sleep time for me now. It is funny how NZ jet lag works and unproductive because I cannot go to sleep until the wee hours of the morn.

Bonsoir