11th Place Snowboard World Cup Opener

I got off to a solid start to the Snowboard World Cup competition season yesterday in Landgraaf, Netherlands at our indoor slalom opener at Snowworld. It was a lot of fun! I had two solid qualifying runs to advance to the top sixteen head-to-head final. The snow was rock hard, but grippy and smooth, perfect for racing. I worked hard the past week dailing in my boards and making them fast and they felt perfect. I faced young Slovenian Rider Zan Kosir in the first round of the finals. I had a fast start and was charging the top. My qualifiers were solid, but I knew I could move my feet faster. I said to myself in the start in the finals, “Let’s see how fast you can go.” There are few environments like alpine snowboarding where you can test yourself against the best and see how fast you can push it. That’s why I love it. I was off to a fast start, but five gates into the run I drilled one of the short stubbie gates on my heelside turn with the nose of my board and dropped like a felled tree, slidding on my butt past the next gate and taking the penalty going into the second run which was .88. I knew this would be a huge margin to overcome in a short twenty-one gate sprint. I flew out of the start in the second run determined to catch Zan and make up the difference. I crossed the finish line .25 behind, making up more than a half second, but not quite enough to advance to the quarterfinals. I’m stoked on my riding, but of course disappointed to have made the line mistake. I was running an aggressive line and got a little greedy. Darn, I was feeling it! Frenchie Mathieu Bozzetto won the men’s slalom and German Amelie Kober won the Women’s race. My teammate Adam Smith finished sixteenth, Justin Reiter eigteenth, and Zak Kay twenty first. Erica Mueller was eighth. I’m traveling to Austria today and will be training in Solden, Austria all week for our giant slalom World Cup Saturday. I’m excited to race GS again.

The new CKF site is now live. Check it out at, www.chrisklug.org. Hope you like it. Don’t forget to register now for the Summit for Life 2007. Learn more at www.summitforlife.org. Thanks for checking in. Below is a shot from yesterday’s final. I’ll keep you posted from Solden! Thanks for checking in,

CK

Landgraaf, Netherlands 2007 FIS World Cup, photo courtesy FIS Media