Les Contamines Sprint

I'll start with a funny contrast. Here's the Norwegian and German wax room setup and staff. 

Here's the wax room of the Slovenian, Swedish, USA and Canada.  This doesn't really show it, but it's also the guest house' utility room and the ceiling really isn't very tall. 

It doesn't hinder anyone's performance, it's just funny.  

When I was in there the other night, Jure Ales of Slovenia had leaned his skis against a shelf.  One of the older ladies working at the place came by later, she doesn't speak English, but motioned that she wanted me to move some skis so she could get to the shelf.  I've never felt skis as sharp as Jure's.  It blew my mind.  I've gotta figure out if I can get mine like that. Amazing. 

We got to sleep in a little more before today's action which was nice.  Olle and I had breakfast with Phil Lau's father, Phil is known by his teammates at the mutant.  I've tried to watch his runs and agree - he's current World Cup points leader. 

Scraped a bunch of ice off car window, a good sign that it froze last night. Race course was ice.  It was wet yesterday and it froze perfectly overnight.  Several of the ladies fell - it just sounded difficult. 

So I watched many of the men's runs, including Phil's.  I watched him in La Plagne too. If I didn't get to go on the course too, it would tell you virtually nothing, or tell you the sport is so easy. He carves a singular line across ice and ruts and looks more effortless than any other skier. That's the mark of excellence, making something difficult look so easy.  It blows my mind after also racing the course how he cuts better carves on steep icy gates than I can on bluebird day blue run fresh groomed runs.  It's a treat to watch. To a spectator, I think it conveys "this telemark stuff looks so graceful and easy, why are all these other people skidding around?"  

I have to say I enjoyed both runs.  And survived them. Perhaps even had a few sections that felt good.  It would be very helpful if I could jump train with turns ahead and after at home because I rack up a lot of penalty time with those. 

But honestly, why race when this is abailable? I should just eat these all day. Fresh nutella crepes in the Alps!

Racing tomorrow is cancelled with rain. We ended up going to a bar with the French, some Swiss and the Slovenians. Some guy (not with us) was full asleep at the bar, presumably being a ski bum tired him out. Some other guy, again not with us, ripped off all his clothes (literally, all of them) and streaked past the girls smoking a joint outside and did a swan dive into a snow bank.   He came back holding his tool in a way that telegraphed that the whole episode maybe wasn't the best idea (or the crunchy snowbank part wasn't so good).  Not a good pic, but he's in the snow above the head of the girl with the leopard print scarf.