St. Johann Race

A recipe for success in Skier Cross is one part power, one part ski racing skills, half part strategy, and three parts luck.  At the first World Cup in St. Johann, I had the luck part figured out.

Usually if I lose in the start people don't mess up in front of me.  In the case of St. Johann, people were screwing up all over the place.  In part because of first race jitters, course conditions, and also rookie racers.

After finishing 16th in the qualifier I had the last pick of gates in each heat.  In the quarter-final I lost the start and was 4th to the corner, but the young Canadian in front of me took out the guy in front of him, which gave me an easy move to the semis.  In the semifinal, Thomas Krauss did something completely uncharacteristic of him and stuck his pole between his legs.  He took out Andreas Matt in the process.  This gave me the win in the semifinal and I went onto the final.

To give you an idea how important it was to qualify well and have a good gate pick, the finals were made up of qualifying rankings of 1, 2, 3, and me, 16.  My good luck ran out there however.  No one made a mistake and I came down in 4th position.

I was very happy with this result.  When I came to Europe my back was out and my knee was bothering me.  I was having serious thoughts of pulling out and driving over to France.  But I stuck my nose in it and I got a damn good result.

I have been working diligently to fix my back so hopefully it will come around for the upcoming races in France.  I'll check in when I get there.

[Watch Casey's video from St. Johann!]