Downhill - 6th.

Super G - 7th.

Super-Combi - 7th.

Giant Slalom - 5th.

Slalom - 7th.

A solid week.

Soon to be followed by a sleepless week getting reacquainted with British Eurosport thanks to the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, starting tonight in Garmisch-Partenkirchen,Germany.

Mitch.

It took me this long to ride to Anglesea the next morning..

And it took me this many days to get something online afterwards..

Mitch.

A…

Week…

In…

Winter Park!

It’s no World Cup and definitely no World Champs, but a nice race-week here in Colorado nonetheless.

Picked up a couple of NorAm victories in the Super G and the GS, as well as a cheeky second place in the Combi behind Paralympic Slalom Champion, Adam Hall of New Zealand.

A confidence boosting 0.76 second win over Cam in the Super G allowed me to proudly top the second Australian team sweep of my career, with Toby cruising to third place fresh of the plane from a well-earned Christmas Break in Bondi.

Then I got lucky the following day, edging Cam by 0.11 of  a second in the final run of the GS, after tying in the first run.

It’s a long way from Sestriere, but surely it can’t hurt…

Mitch.

Four fairly clean runs of incredibly fun Super G without too many issues.

Except for the third run, where I completely messed up the blind entry onto the pitch.. but when training’s that much fun, I don’t particularly mind.

Mitch.

Having thought about it for quite a while and seen some of the awesome footage people have been capturing; like this from Norwegian Kjetil Jansrud…

And this from Aussie ski-crosser Scotty Kneller…

I think its a bit of a no-brainer… I have to have one!

In other news, Christmas break is over and we’re back on the hill in Vail.

Started with a couple days of Slalom, then Cam and I jumped into some sweet Super G with Ski Club Vail today.

I’ll try and get some video up later…

Either way, I’m pretty psyched now for the next weeks NorAms in Winter Park!

Mitch.

Two days ago, I revisited the brilliant sandwiches and acceptable coffee (a rarity in North America) of the Back Door Deli in Park City, Utah for the first time since 2008.

Yesterday, I visited again.
However this time there were no sandwiches as they had closed their legendary doors until Boxing Day. Instead, I sat at the bench outside utilising their plentiful Wi-Fi to make the obligatory Christmas Day Skype calls to those back in Australia.

With the pleasantries taken care of, it was time to head out to Christmas Eve dinner at the mansion at Jeremy Ranch politely being taken care of by ski-crosser Sami Kennedy and her cross-country-turned- nordic-combined-skier fiancé Ben Sim.

Far too many helpings of Roast Pork and Pavlova later, Ben rolled me home to wallow alone in my food induced coma.

Merry Christmas.

Mitch.

Mitch.

Today’s race made about as much sense as a grasshopper teaching a monkey to ride a unicycle as far as I was concerned.

Yesterday saw some fairly average skiing, coupled with a bit of dumb luck land me a third placing in the first NorAm GS at Copper yesterday.

Today I was determined to do better.

Things started well and I managed to win the opening run.

Sitting just .1 of a second clear of New Zealand’s Adam Hall, the win was never a certainty, but upon crossing the finish line I was quite confident I’d done enough.

However, after skiing what I believed to be close to my best run so far this week, I was greeted with 4th place.

6th in the second run!

What happened?!

At first I thought the timing must have messed up.

Then I wondered if we’d got the wax wrong, but the other boys put down decent runs on the same gear.

Then Toby suggested that I may have been on the receiving end of a bad gust of the bitter wind on the top flats.

Finally, we inspected the video with a fine-tooth comb.

It strongly suggested I had skied it a little round… but 2 whole seconds?

Surely not!

Eventually I came to grips with the fact it must have been a little bit of all of the above in some way, shape or form.

The fact I inadvertently inspected second run on my race skis can’t have helped either..

Moving forward, its time for some slalom.

Hopefully I can rid myself of the unexplained slowness!

Mitch.

Briefly bashed out the meaning of life with Toby Francis Kane over a few runs in the Back Bowls.

Completed with the ever so cultural Cheese Pizza and LARGE Drip Coffee at the Two Elk Lodge.

Mitch.

A little GS from me and some crazy skills from the World Cup guys with whom we have been sharing our training hill.

The Finns have too much fun in their lives..

Mitch.