Buckle up for a nice long post (mostly photos though, don’t worry)! Every year I look forward to coming to Davos because it’s become our home away from home here in Europe. Our team has been staying at the Hotel Kulm since the 80’s and the family-run hotel has treated us like an extension of their own family, which makes our stay so warm and inviting! It’s so nice to be able to hop on a short bus ride into town, and that freedom is a big change from some venues where you feel pretty confined to the hotel. It’s also amazingly sunny and gorgeous here, so although there was no natural snow to be seen, it was nice to get some sun rays on the deck!
The view from the balcony! Wow!
Enjoying some Swiss sunshine! (photo by Rosie)
Sophie hamming it up with Federer’s talking image in the Zurich airport.
The organizers here in Davos do an absolutely phenomenal job with snow-farming and making the man-made course in low snow years (which, thanks to climate change, has been almost every year now). Check out the “inside the fence” videos FIS has been making to see more of the World Cup and especially the venue here! Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIwYDyTRNgY
Rosie and Kikkan and the amazing view of the mountains from the trail!
Rosie, Kikkan and I doing some easy classic skiing and speeds a few days out from the races.
Think I’ve finally figured out the most aerodynamic tuck for the long downhill…;) HAH! (photo from Eric Packer)
Cork perched on a fence ready to get video during intervals…and ready to get freezing cold! (photo from Sadie)
Every year we do a team-wide secret santa, and this year we changed it to writing a poem about your person to drawing a portrait of the person. We all hung them up throughout the day in the main room, and then after dinner you had to guess which portrait was of you, and then guess who drew it! We also donated to a charity that we thought our secret person would enjoy supporting. There was a lot of laughing and silly photos, but also some amazing portraits…we have some talented artists on the team!
Rosie creating her amazing mosaic of Fish!
The likeness was astounding…
The crew with our portraits! It was a silly, fun night.
Andrew drew me and donated to the Minnesota Youth Ski League as well as Right to Play!
Cork and JP both kind of look like the portrait Matt drew of JP – it was awesome!
The racing this week was a 15/30km individual start skate race and a skate sprint the following day. Since I love doing everything, I decided to race both, although I suppose it was a little bit risky energy-wise because at around 4,500ft of elevation, it’s harder to recover day after day.
Grover enjoying the espresso machine at the FIS family tent!
Me enjoying the mountain view on an evening jog the night before the first race.
This year was without a doubt the best I’ve ever paced my 15km effort! It’s such a challenging course because it’s all gradual climbing, then all gradual decent and you can’t ever really rest or relax anywhere! I was so happy with my 4th place and my downhill splits proved that my Salomon boards were rockets yet again, especially with some hard work from our techs and staff!
Racing lap 2 of the 3-lap 5km course on Saturday! (photo from the Caldwells)
Edging around a sharp corner! (photo from the Caldwells)
Shoutout to the SMS kids we train with in the summer for their glitter photo! Thanks guys!
Our awesome staff! Well, not all of them are in this photo, but here’s Oleg, Tim, Andrew, JP and Cork – Cork is my personal tech although everyone works together to determine the wax of the day for the team! (photo from Noah)
The skate day was another awesome day for me personally but what made it the best was that so many girls qualified and moved up in the sprint! Sophie made it almost to the final (she fell on the final curve of her semi heat), Sadie was 3rd in her quarter and Ida was 4th in hers. The team is in a good place and moving up and up!
Sophie giving me good luck kisses before my heat in the start pen! (photo from Noah)
Happy with my day! 6th in qualifying, 5th on the day! (photo from Noah)
Congratulating the other girls after the final. It’s so fun to have friends from teams all over the world! (photo from Noah)
Chatting tactics with Matt before the heats. (photo from Noah)
Tim, Oleg, Andrew, JP, Ida and Cork: Anxiously awaiting the video of the finish! (photo from Noah)
Checking out previous heats and strategy with Grover (photo from Noah)
Now we have a few days to rest and train in Davos before driving to La Clusaz for the final races of World Cup period 1!
