We kicked off the January World Cups by boarding the planes in Canada on the 31st of December. The plane was delayed, so, when we boarded the plane, the captain greeted us with a cheerful, “It is 2 am in Frankfurt. Happy New Year!” – So much for ringing in 2010 with a bang.
Our first World Cup was in Kreischberg, Austria near the town of Murau – about two hours southeast of Salzburg. The town has a brewery that is 800 years old. Although, it was just as well that they were not offering tours, as we had to race.
I love racing in Kreischberg. This was the first place I ever won prize money in a World Cup – way back in 2002 in a World Cup Snowboardcross. I also qualified for my first Sport Canada funding in 2003 by finishing in the top 16 at World Championships! So, my feelings for this race hill are very positive. The race hill itself has a bit of terrain: with a gentle slope onto flat, then dropping over a sharp knoll back onto flat and then dropping over another knoll into the finish line. The snow is usually firm, dense man-made snow – this is my favourite as I am a pretty powerful rider and I like to push hard on my board and the hard snow holds the edge and helps me to generate speed.
As I had done quite badly in the last few World Cups, my World Cup ranking had dropped (it is the cumulative points from all of my World Cup results in the season) and I was starting out of the top seed: bib 21, to be exact.
The course had big turns, which require a lot of lateral movement and strong carving, and a number of rhythm changes, which require a smart approach to the course – this course was designed for me! I took my first qualification run and rode well, finishing 3rd in my course. After the second qualification run, I went into the finals ranked third.
First round of the qualifications, I beat Tomoka Takeuchi from Japan in both runs. Moving into the quarterfinal, I beat Heidi Neururer from Austria in both runs to move me into the semifinal where I faced her teammate Marion Kreiner. I beat Marion in the first run by the full penalty of 1.5 seconds. Then in our next run against each other, I made some crazy mistakes by trying to straighten out my line too much. Four gates from the finish, I was on my butt and Marion was a little bit ahead of me. I stood up, carved the third to last gate and ripped past the last two gates to beat Marion and move on to the Big Final! As we turned and watched the replay of the last few gates, Marion saw how I tore up the last three gates and beat her across the finish line and yelled, “Scheise!” (I will let you guess the translation.)
Then came the Big Final, racing for the gold. I was against Nicolien Sauerbreij from the Netherlands. She is a tough competitor and I managed to let that rattle me. I did not stick to the line through the gates that had been working for me all day, rather I tried to run a straighter line, which got me into trouble and forced me to make some mistakes. She beat me in both runs and took the gold, while I posted my best result ever and came home with the silver and a lesson learned.
Jasey brought home his second World Cup victory in a row, Caro finished 16th and Ekaterina, one of the up-and comers, finished 18th. At least we rang in the first World Cup of the year with a bang!