Val St-Come Super Series

Just back from Val St-Come!

The two slaloms in Val St-Come opened the 2013-2014 Super Series season. The snow was amazing all week-end due to the -35 weather on Saturday. This year, there was a smaller field at the races, about 65 womens and 85 mens, with half of them being first years. It was great to see these athletes try to make their way to the top as the flip was easily accessible.

Today, we woke up with about 30cm of fresh snow on the hill... Some would call it luck, but for our racers it was more of a struggle. All athletes participated to a tails-to-tips slip of half the race run to clear out the powder from the race run. The mens course had been set on Saturday night, but we decided not to run it and to have both men and women ski the same course. It worked out great as the track was bullet-proof once the new snow was cleared. For second run, the same course was offsetted by a couple of feet.

Results wise, it was under our expectations with many DNFs, but all athletes are now driven to show what they can do at the next series in Tremblant and St-Sauveur next week. We'll be heading there for 4 days, 2SL and 2GS races are on the program. Hannah managed a nice week-end again, signing a 3rd place on Saturday and a 5th today. Without some minor hick-ups, she was for sure fighting for the win!

The sunrise on Saturday was worth it, even if athletes had to get out in the extreme cold! Nice picture of the start hut - credits to Hannah.

Happy thanksgiving!

I'm late, but I had to share this...

Back at it!

Back at it!!! 

Yesterday, we got the bad weather that has been coming in from the west in the last week... It even snowed in Texas! Here in Maine we got rain. A lot of it... Skiing wasn't such an option and the whole mountain was pretty close to being closed. It was a good day for everybody to do homework and relax a little bit. The last week required hard work, especially with the icy runs here. 

Today, we made it up with a double gates session. The rain from yesterday flash froze and we found ourselves with super slick conditions! Good for the skiing, not so good for edges. The rest of the day was dedicaded to grocery shopping and tuning. We did 3 grocery stores and 1h30 of driving to finally realize that nothing was open today due to Thanksgiving holidays. We ended up buying 3 pounds of bacon, chicken, pastas and eggs at a gas station... 

The athletes just finished tuning their skis with the help of the snowglide. It was a hard day to be skis. 

Cheers! 

Gab

Sunday River epicness!

Hi all,

Sorry for the late news, but we have been lacking Internet Signal here in the last few days. We arrived in Sunday River last Friday at night. Getting into Maine, we could already see snow on the ground and feel the colder air. We checked in our condos and then went for some grocery shopping.

Our first day on snow was great - the NCO athletes started off the day with some free skiing to get back into the rythm after one month off the snow. We trained some slalom gates in the afternoon. Sunday River presently has 20+ runs open, and conditions are unbelievable! Snow is hard, gripy and fast... We couldn't ask for more.

Our skiers are fast and the carry-over from Austria is great. The last camp was harder due to the unpredictable weather, but we are definitely seeing the results with our crew. Yesterday was a cold day and we had to wait to set our course because of the strong winds. We can say that the winds made it under -15 degrees for sure! Today was also very cold, but less windy. That being said, skiing is fantastic and everybody seems to be ripping. We are well on our way for a great season... We'll keep you guys updated as we know who will get in the first slalom races, here in Sunday River.

Cheers

Coach Gab

Ted's analysis!

Here's how Mr. Ted Ligety describes his own victory in Soelden, Austria. He's got some pretty simple focuses!

Culture and strudel time in Innsbruck

Today was our second day off,

We slept in and left for Innsbruck around 10AM. We got to the 1976 winter olympic host city an hour later. In 76, both Montreal summer Olympics and Innsbruck winter Olympics were held in the same year. That's how they used to do it before it changed from a four year cycle to a two year cycle in 1994. That year, Lillehammer (Norway) was the host city.

We parked near the congress center in the Old Town. Aside all the shops and the old appartments, the golden leaf roof is one of Innsbruck best attractions. All went different ways and visited the city for a few hours before we got back to the mountains. Here are a few pictures from our day:

Juice bought a new outfit... Here he is with our hostess

Ahhhh, it snowed by the way!

Ice, snow, rain and wind; the NCO doesn't back off and leaves glacier last...

Today's plan was to freeski before lunch and then go out and train Slalom gates in the PM. Although it was really windy, we had 5 to 6 freeruns on hard glacier snow before we got in. After a nice lunch in the confort of the ski lodge lower on the mountain, we got back out to stick some SL poles in the ice... Once at the top of our lane, we realized that we had no choice to change our plans. It was a total white out, with unbelievably strong winds carrying snow and ice. All the Europeans were gone home at this point. Our call was to freeski a little more. We got tossed right and left by the winds and the snow hitting our faces felt like we were being sandblasted. 

That being said, the hard snow made up for some pretty damn good skiing from the FIS athletes! Way to go, NCO athletes are rough and tough!

Back at it and well rested

Today we were back on snow, but this time on the GS skis.  Yesterday's break was well appreciated by athletes who got to do homework and sleep in a little later. All went for dryland activities at 3:30PM in order to prevent the legs from stiffening up during the day.

Today's training was the first GS day since the Chile camp. It was devoted to gaining back all the good feelings of the last days we had in the Soutern Hemisphere. It wasn't easy for all, but everybody now seems to know what they have to do tomorrow in order to get going in the right direction. We also took the official photos that will soon be on the NCO website: http://www.ncoski.com/

Patrick Campbell

Erin Kral

Cassidy Charrette

Kate Van Buren

Justin Haineault

Hannah Schmidt

Caitlin Roe

Jared Schmidt

Max Monast-Doré

Olexa Chewpa

Already one week into the camp

Hi!

Olexa with Jon

Tomorrow will be our last day before break number one here in Hintertux. The slalom block has been really helpful for the team. Today was foggy and rainy in the morning, but we got to sqeeze in a good afternoon session when it stopped raining. Snow was a little soft but it was totally managable. Everybody is happy to be hitting some plastic. 

As a general rule, athletes are focusing on technical adjustments in the top section of the ski turn; the one before they actually hit the slalom pole. The crew has been focussing on the first processes of a fast turn and it has been showing better results than focusing on the end result. I will try and post videos in the next few days. 

On another note, Olexa and Jared got to meet ski legend Jon Olsson. For those who don't know the guy, he once was one of the best freestylers in the world and now has just over 10 points in Giant Slalom. One of the best overall skier on the globe i would say... He lives a luxury life in Monaco and goes around the ski resorts with his ful carbon Audi R8 equipped with a ski rack. Here's his blog: http://jon-olsson.com/

Jared and Jon

View from our hotel

I'd love to go skiing with a full carbon R8

Slalom's on!

First day of slalom training today! We have a different schedule this week, as we have lane space in the afternoon. Here's how it goes on for the FIS team here in Austria: 

7:30AM - Breakfast

8:30AM - Activation/Jogging warm-up

10:00AM - Leaving the hotel 

10:15AM - On the first gondola

11:50AM - Freeski session on the glacier

12:30AM - Lunch in the sun

1:15PM to 3PM - Slalom gates on lane 13

3:45PM - Download to the parking lot

4:30PM - Dryland/core

6:30PM - Dinner time (salads, chicken and tiramisu) 

8:00PM - Team meeting

8:15PM - Tuning/homework