Traditions

Its that time of year! Christmas and that means Bormio. For three years now I have been spending Christmas abroad with the rest of the team. Christmas usually means gag gifts and explosives. This year I got five dice and a thermos. Some of the other gifts everyone received consisted of a robe, giraffe hockey skate covers, wigs, a flute, a rhino candle and several others I cant think of right now. The Barbie doll was back but I didn't receive it this year. Mac got it this year. And yes we tied explosives to her. My doll from last year was much more resilient than Mac's.
Other than the explosives I toured around the city of Bormio, listened to the bells, went to midnight mass for about two minutes but couldn't understand a thing and then I took some photos.






(I will bring you the exploding doll pics soon)
Happy Holidays
Steven

Gardenot!

Man what a day. Talk about Polar opposites! One year winning then
the next falling flat on my face three skates into the course. I
didn't even make it to the first gate! haha! Oh well? I guess if I
had to look on the positive side of things I would say this got me a
lot of media time. Almost as much as if I had won the thing again!
Its kind of funny. People were basing a lot of stories around me for
this race. There is a deep history or repeat winners on the
Saslong. Then kersplat! Onto my face. Channel 4 in Great Britan
made a whole show about me and returning to defend my victory. Thy
got about three seconds of action from me.
I just say that life. Funny things happen. It will be one more year
until i have the chance to tackle the Saslong once again. Life moves
on and now off to Bormio!

My hat goes off to Scotty Mac for keeping the US mens Downhill podium
streak going. Congrats to him for his 2nd ever podium. Its a great
result especially coming off of hip surgery this past spring. Our
team is skiing well. I can't wait for the day when we are all on the
podium

North America Wrap Up

Dider Cuche flirting with danger


Mac and TJ checking out the sites

Well North America is done for now and we are currently in Europe.
I love it over here! Really I do. The first time I jumped the pond I swore I never would come back but that didn't happen and since then I have come to enjoy Europe. We arrived to rumors of good snow and its here but up high and there's tons of it.
It is also nice because we have a little down time for a difference. We usually land and get in a car, drive to France for 10 hours then race. These shenanigans usually bring on some cases of the flu but this time FIS wised up and scheduled the races for the middle of the winter.
Right now we are chilling in Patsch racking up some excellent Guitar Hero time. I am by far the worst on the team. Props to Marco, he wails! We have plans to go ski in St. Anton, catch a Bayern Munchen game and catch up on the missed zzz's from Beaver Creek.
I had a surprise waiting for me when I landed. Audi gave me a car for the winter! I have never driven a fast car and I know an A6 isn't the fastest but man!!!!! This thing hauls! I had to punch it the moment I got onto the Autobahn and I got it up to 230kmh then got a little freaked. Not too shabby.

I probably shouldn't take pics while going 200k on the autostrasse

This past week in Beaver Creek was really good. I was really satisfied with my performance in the DH. Something I always admired when I was young was when a racer would win all the training runs and the race. It shows incredible confidence, determination and the ability to focus. When you pull something of like that it shows how strong you are mentally. I always thought Daron Rahlves was good at this, especially when they had the reverse bib order. He didn't care where he started he just went for it and would pull off the win. I kind of had a glimpse at feeling this in Beaver Creek but I was second every run I took down the course. I did feel the pressures from it as well. When the actual Downhill race came around I started having feeling of pressure to perform. I had to suppress these feelings to perform well. You cant go into a race saying I'm going to win and constantly thinking of winning. You have to focus on the task at hand and only on what you can do. You have no control over anybody or anything else except yourself so simply focus on yourself. And that's what I did, I simply focused on what I had to do and it worked out. That is where the real satisfaction came form that weekend. The podium helped for sure but going out there and doing what you set out to to do the big treat.
Props to Ted for Shredding today!
Next stop Gardena!!!