Christmas in Bormio

We had Christmas in Bormio as a team. Many traditions were kept from many years: secret Santa and Christmas hockey, as well as some more recent additions -- dinner with the Canadians. We had a nice long 3 hour, 7 course dinner with 26 of us packed into the small back room of this really fun restaurant in Bormio. At first they had us sitting out front, but I think they were glad we squeezed into the back room. We tend to be a bit loud when we are all together.  All in all it was a great time and many laughs with the two teams together.

Going back to last week- Val Gardena was a good step forward for me.  I was 23rd, scoring some points, which was good. I made some mistakes and it always could have been better, but I was glad to walk away with some points and some good feelings in most sections.

Here in Bormio we have our race on the 29th. The hill is always tough here and this year is no different.  Bormio has much more snow than normal- they got a big dump here the last few weeks, but then it rained for 3 days straight up through Christmas day.

The hill is actually in great shape considering that.  Some inconsistent sections in terms of the snow surface, but overall, the course looks really good and should get better by race day.  They did their usual Bormio prep, mostly crappy grooming and then let the public ski on it.  There were even some people skiing on the course as we were inspecting today.  That really doesn't happen anywhere else in the world.

As you say to those new to this hill… "Welcome to Bormio"