FIS World Cup in Solden, Austria

The FIS Snowboard World Cup debuted the new qualification format and new start gates yesterday in our first European World Cup of the season in Solden, Austria. I pulled a classic in the parallel giant slalom event yesterday. I flipped over the new start gates when I jumped the gun on the start cadence, doing a full summersault out of the start and onto my chin, which I proceeded to ride to the first gate. I was pretty much fifteen to twenty seconds out of the race before the first gate. I split my chin open and had to get twelve stitches, and split my board in half. Fortunately we had doctors that joined us and helped stitch me up! I was in good company however; as nine male racers from top seed did the same thing. I guess the cadence is a little slower now.I was happy to get out of the start successfully today in the slalom race. I qualified eleventh and finished eleventh. Glad I didn’t do anymore front flips, but would have liked to have advanced a few more rounds. It was a so so weekend for our team. Eric Warren finished tenth in the pgs on Saturday.We’re all taking the day off tomorrow after six days in a row on-snow. We’re headed to Munich in the afternoon and then onto Landgraf, Netherlands from there on Tuesday for next weekend’s indoor slalom world cup. I’m intrigued as to what that set-up is going to look like. I envision it like going snowboarding at the roller rink, hopefully not! It was a great event this weekend in Solden, amazing weather, perfect snow, and some ripping riding. I was pleased with my slalom riding overall today, but of course disappointed with my start fiasco in Saturday’s pgs. I’m well prepared and was convinced that I would have been competitive yesterday, so naturally I was bummed. I’ll just have to be patient and wait until the next pgs world cup in Tandadallen, Sweden Dec. 5th to get it done. Below are some World Cup Pics. Talk to ya indoor from the Netherlands!CK

Here’s me going over the bars in start gate!