Lindsey Vonn World Cup Title

last year, she was the favorite heading into this season. Yes, a U.S. alpine skier began the year as the one to beat. And yet no one did.

Maybe the most impressive thing was the method by which she won this year’s title – turning a weakness into a strength. This season was the more complete of the two championships. Whereby, last year’s title was achieved largely on the merits of her speed skiing success, this year saw Vonn contribute to her cause on the technical side as well. And not only did she contribute, she actually excelled in slalom, finishing 3rd in the discipline on the year after winning the opening event of the season.

This improvement is not by accident. No one works harder in the summer than Lindsey Vonn. While it would be tempting for most to soak up a world number one title by kicking back on the beach, Vonn let loose by kicking herself in the butt for six hours a day in the gym. The results were immediate as she won the opening slalom of the season that induced a collective “uh oh” from the rest of the women’s field. Lindsey was untouchable the previous year in downhill and if she is now not only scoring big points in slalom, but also winning races, the battle was going to be for second place alone.

It is important to remember that there are more alpine disciplines now than there were in previous eras so the opportunity to win is greater. The likes of Tamara McKinney had a much smaller margin for error, but, that said, you still have to go out and do it. And this is a sport where even the smallest of mistakes can make the difference between winning and losing so to be as precise and consistent as Vonn has is nothing short of spectacular.

One other fact makes elevates Vonn from a worthy champion to a truly admirable one. And that is her undeniably engaging and unassuming personality. She always wears a smile, seems genuinely surprised by her results and is never shy about sharing all of her emotions. There is an authenticity about Vonn that is appealing. She respects the process and appreciates the journey without losing the joy in the execution. She has the little girl love of the sport with the big girl discipline to compete at the highest level. She is impossible not to like or root for.

I’ve always found it kind of funny how we spend so much anxiety over whether or not the athletes on our favorite teams in our most beloved sports are good or bad people beyond the playing field. It shouldn’t really matter, but for many people it does. Shocking, too, how their analysis of an athlete’s personal behavior seems to correspond with their most recent on-field performances. We justify the jerks when they are helping our teams win and ride them out of town when they are losing. The point is that it makes them easier to embrace when they are like Lindsey Vonn. There is a total package there that makes our emotional investment in her feel right. If she was a cold, irascible figure it would not preclude us from marveling at her achievements, just make them less fulfilling. But it is anything but with Vonn. She hits every proper note for the ski fan and is about to do the same for the mainstream as well. This girl is going to be the star of the Olympic Games in Vancouver. No athlete will receive more attention, buzz or pure hype leading up to 2010 than Lindsey Vonn train. And given her demeanor, how can you not hop right on board?

The results so far speak for themselves so I’ll spend this time just filling you in on our time in the French Alps and what was happening around town. After a long trip from St. Louis that included a ridiculously long terminal transfer in London, I arrived in Geneva only to find that my bags did not. Shouldn’t of surprised me given that it took me almost a half hour to get between gates at Heathrow that the baggage folks were not as intent as I was on making my next flight. So after four hours waiting for my bags at the Geneva airport, I was finally on a bus for the three hour drive to the hotel in Bourg St. Maurice whis is a little town about 45 minutes short of Val D’Isere. Upon my arrival that night, no one could seem to tell me, either in French or in broken English, exactly where the hotel was located. Many in fact never even heard of it. Not a good sign. Even more frustrating at the end of a long journey when you are mentally shot and problem solving becomes an increasingly difficult challenge.

Since there are only so many directions one can take from the round about in a small town, I figured a few minutes of walking would eventually get me there. Unfortunately, I was right. The place was everything a European hotel in a tiny mountain setting is purported to be: no lights in the hallway, no shower curtain in the bathroom, light switch for the room at my ankles, musty old comforter on the bed and no one who speaks even a hint of English at the front desk. It has never taken me song long to ask for a bar of soap in my life. After they tried to give me soup, the thought of smelling like Tomato basil the rest of the day led me to call off the search. I stopped asking for things altogether at the hotel once I failed to get a wake up call. Not that they forgot, just that they never bothered to grant the request in the first place. You see, a wake up call for me would have required them waking up to call me and they were just willing to do that.

Needless to say, I was happy to leave for Val D’Isere itself early the next morning (after waking up on my own many times throughout the night, stressed that I would oversleep). It was a 45 minute bus ride up tight and turny alpine roads with sharp switchbacks and impatient other drivers who insisted on passing our bus even on blind corners…the type of moves you can only watch through one partially closed eye it’s so close.

Oh, I forgot. To get on the bus, you had to get a free ticket from one man standing next to the door and immediately hand it to the man standing next to him. I never even looked at it. Must be a rigorous French security measure.

Our limited time in VDS was extremely busy, but there was a cool vibe throughout the picturesque village. They take their skiing seriously there and have a genuine appreciation for the history of the sport. Having such a prestigious event in such an historic location to begin with, makes it all the more compelling. We met some fine people and even shot a segment with Norwegian skiing legend Kjetil Andre Amondt among others…and many of them in a bar no less. I know, what a surprise! It is one of the many different stories you will see on the World Championships show here on The Ski Channel. Look for it later this month.

Our departure from VDS late that first night did disappoint in keeping the drama alive. Packed into a bus with a hoard of drunk Frenchmen ringing cowbells, we were late to leave. When we did pull out, the bus driver ran smack into a stone pillar, blowing out a rear tire. You can imagine the over the top reaction from our French companions who cheered as if Jean Claude Killy had just come out of retirement and won the downhill. So we disembarked and proceeded on to another bus for the fun filled frolic back down the mountain. And this was after we realized our television equipment had been accidentally locked in the bus depot requiring a 90 minute round trip journey back here before leaving for good.

All in all…good times overseas. Europe is always an adventure and travel to remote alpine destinations is never easy. The more splendid they are, the harder they seem to be to get to. It’s part of the beauty of the sport and the elegance of its atmosphere. Val D’Isere has been a terrific host for these world championships and everyone from the athletes to the fans seem pleased.

After a day seeing the Old Town and the lake in Geneva, it’s on to Belgium before the long trip home where I have just been denied a second cup of coffee on my flight to Brussels. Now that is serious travel trouble for ya.

Of course, that is on a typical day. And the world championships will be anything but typical. Hundreds of thousands jamming this bright little hamlet is gonna be chaotic. No other way to put it. Folks from roughly 70 different nations are expected and since it’s a modern day alpine crowd, safe to say the pubs will attract more business than the spires. Like any big event, it becomes a party. For some, it is nothing but. Imagine holding the Super Bowl in Peoria. No wait, that’s too big. Try Yuma, Arizona. All the fans, the flockers, the gazers and such…..all swarming a small resort town. If only alpine racing did not require a sloping landscape. It would be so easy to stage an event this size in a major market city if only the downhill could be run on a 1% gradient….oh right, it already is…they call it cross country skiing.

Regardless, the majesty of the mountains, the size of the stage and the electricity in the air will more than make up for the shoulder to shoulder experience. The world championships come around only once every two years and carry a prestige that is wholly unique. Unlike the Olympics, these championships are singular. Alpine and Nordic racing - which will have their event over in the Czech Republic immediately on the heels of the alpine – do not share their platform with all of the other winter oriented sports. Here, they stand alone. The lights are bright and the scrutiny severe. The focus is intense and the pressure immense. The title of world champion resonates in a definitive, universal kind of way. It is ubiquitous and beyond reproach. Something that heads any future resume and calls dibs on any corner table in every mountain town. The world championships are like nothing else in the world.

I guess that makes the line outside the VDS pub a little warmer on an otherwise frosty February night!

These are courses steeped in history and defined by quirks and nuances that give them a meaningful place in the list of sports greatest stages. Just as golf fans revere the annual spring stop at Augusta and baseball fans revel in a game a Fenway, ski racing enthusiasts crave this January fix of alpine cathedrals. The drop into the Mausefalle in Kitz, the soaring jump of the Hundshopf, these are signature features that identify their track and give it texture and style. Careers are framed by what happens at these fabled venues. A win here will is a step towards alpine immortality. A victory elsewhere makes you a winner. Here, it transforms you into a legend.

This is the heart of the racing season and it runs through the soul of the sport. What happens in this next month will further shape the World Cup season and create heroes along the way. Watching the best athletes in a particular sport battle on that sport’s most hallowed grounds is the essence of great theater. Who will embrace the big stage and who will cower from its shadow? Will a newcomer have a performance that transcends talent and will others crumble under the weight of expectations? Will established stars emerge for an encore or stake their claim to a final shot at glory?

This next month provides a canvas for some great stories to be told. Yes, the world championships are next month in February, but the next few weeks offer up the calling cards of alpine racing. January truly is the greatest show on snow.

Anyway, while most skiers are banking run after run with no school and scaled back work hours during this time, it is kind of the opposite on the World Cup Alpine circuit. The skiers actually lay low for a few days without a heavy schedule of racing and training to adhere to. There are some holiday traditions such as the men’s downhill in Bormio between Xmas and New Year’s and outside of a few training runs for that and some potential free skiing on the side, the Cuppers tend to use this rather brief break from competition to enjoy the holidays like the rest of us. The Americans largely stay in Europe and celebrate the holidays together in their central European bases. A few will scatter to rented apartments or the homes of friends – overall champion Lindsay Vonn spends Christmas at the home of one of her main rivals, German Maria Reisch – but the squads are mostly holed up together. Such is life in a winter sport that plays most of its games on European soil.

The unofficial “break” in the season offers up a chance to not only do the gift thing, but also take stock of what has transpired in the season to date. With a heavy racing schedule including some signature events on the calendar for January followed by the World Championships the following month, it is a nice chance to see where you stand as a skier and as a team before you ring in the new year. That, of course, is assuming you have enough races in the can to glean anything useful from. It has been another strange first two months with cancellations, postponements and schedule shifts. If you’re like Vonn and trying to defend a downhill globe, what do you make of the fact that you will only have one downhill event on the books by the time you arrive in Cortina on January 18th? Hard to measure your progress when there is nothing there to measure. Some of it is obviously weather, some just quirky scheduling, but still, you have to race to know exactly where you stand and I’m sure nobody wants to be unsure of anything once those January classics roll around.

The most interesting storyline of the season for me so far? The U.S. Men. Coming off an historic performance in Val Gardena when they put five in the top ten of a World Cup race for the first time ever, the depth and confidence of this team is starting to really show. They are no longer surprised by podiums. They expect them. And they are clearly feeding off the accomplishments of one another. Crazy how what is essentially an individual sport and can possess and thrive on the dynamics of a team environment. Even beyond the podiums and the top ten’s, other Americans are also earning their first World Cup points by charging from back in the field with the swagger of a top 30 starter. It’ll be plenty exciting to watch and see how this trend evolves.

Now, as far as the holidays themselves, I’m on record as saying that it’s my favorite time of the year. That being said, does it feel like Christmas is becoming more and more like a timeout in an otherwise wild shopping spree? I mean we spend some six weeks scouring the stores for gifts, engaging in hand to hand combat for parking spots at the mall and fretting over who to buy for and how much to spend. We take it right up to the brink with folks scrambling out of stores as the sun sets on Xmas Eve, only to return at daybreak on December 26th to start the equally daunting process of exchanging the unwanted. Somewhere in between we try to catch our breath and…oh yeah, celebrate the birth of Christ! It’s enough to make you wish Santa would do more than sit on his butt at the mall and actually gather up the gifts he is supposed to be delivering anyway.

Speaking of mall Santas, my four-year-old daughter posed a good question to the jolly old fella a few weeks back. When he asked her name and if she has been naughty or nice, she paused, wrinkled her forehead and replied, “shouldn’t you know that already”?

Cutting his losses, he didn’t bother asking what she wanted for Christmas.

Happy holidays.

Think about this for a second. In other sports like baseball or football, you have a grounds crew that only has to maintain a flat playing area roughly a few hundred yards around and merely has to pull a tarp over the surface when bad weather hits. When it clears, they unfurl that tarp and we’re ready to play ball. Many surfaces are now made out of field turf, the synthetic blend of artificial turf and natural grass so the maintenance process is that much easier as well. Sure, a golf course has more real estate, but riding atop a lawn mower while soaking in 75 degress and sunshine could be worse. Not to belittle their work because there is also care that goes into maintaining the quality of these various playing fields, but the sum total of their workload does not even approach what mountain crews go through.

First of all, for speed events like a downhill, you are talking about a course that can be in excess of two miles long. TWO MILES! That’s over 35 football fields. I get tired shoveling my driveway, try clearing two feet of fresh for over a mile at 11,000 feet. Most courses are carved out of the trees on extremely steep slopes and with a lot of undulating terrain as well. And because they are at altitude, the weather can be more turbulent and unpredictable, not to mention changing at a moment’s notice. So crews like the one at Beaver Creek are up on that steep slope working in the middle of the night, in the biting cold, moving snow they can barely see and many are not even getting paid for it. As volunteer positions go, passing out flyers at the local polling place doesn’t sound half bad in comparison.

It’s one of the reasons that the Beav is so special as I pointed out in my last post. The folks there take great pride in staging some of the best races on the World Cup. It is a comprehensive community effort. Getting a mountain race ready is no easy feat in the best of conditions, but when mother nature strikes on top of it, only a few places on the circuit really respond with equal force. And for this, the Beav is the best.

By the way, I’ve unintentionally started this little routine of ending my posts with a total non-snow related observation. Don’t know exactly why I started really. Perhaps just too much time on the road and instead of running up the company tab with pay-per views in the hotel, why not ponder the little things such as…appetizers. I mean, it’s not like we have bigger problems in the world right? Oh, the economy may be crumbling, but don’t cry to me about bailouts when all I care about is finding a good calamari. Seriously though, why do we call them “appetizers”? By definition, that would imply that they increase our appetite. Get us hungry in the first place. So why would we be in a restaurant if we weren’t hungry already? Since when do we have to go there just to get hungry? And is a huge plate of chicken nachos really the recipe for jump starting someone’s desire for more food? They should just call appetizers what they are: more food. What, is it too embarrassing to order a plate of buffalo wings and a 20 ounce T-bone? We need to be lulled into thinking we are simply priming our palates for the main course? Please. Don’t be shy. If you’re hungry, eat. Only tell it like it is. Just as linguini is listed under pastas and lobster can be found under seafood, it’s time that giant stuffed mushrooms and cheddar cheese covered potato skins are relocated to a more appropriately labeled section of the menu.

I’m all for “MORE FOOD.” Just thinking about it is quite the appetizer.

Of course, even with its early season slot, Beaver Creek is always a high priority for the Americans. And unlike the only other U.S. stop on the tour in Aspen, (women only now) BC has been kind to the home boys over the years. While no American has won in Aspen since 1981, the likes of Daron Rahlves and Bode Miller have won multiple times on the Birds of Prey. The U.S. team is always fired up to come here and expects good results. No matter what has happened in the first few weeks of the season, the week at the Creek is always a pick me up. It’s the only chance each season for the American men to compete at home so they come to town with everything dialed in and ready to rock. Never mind that this might be the last week for them to get a good cheeseburger or stay in a hotel where they can see back to back to back to back to back episodes of Law & Order. No, the comforts of home will not be a distraction for the focused U.S. squad.

So unless you’re waiting on the edge of your seat for our president elect’s next cabinet appointment, clear time for some of the best alpine skiing you will get to see all year and make sure you join us over at universalsports.com for all the race coverage.

Gee wiz, Beav, you’re the best!

It’s a shame that there are not more stops on this side of the Atlantic. When you consider all of the fantastic venues and snow conditions that are here, it is truly regrettable. From up and down the Rocky Mountain range, over to the Wasatch, Sierra Nevada’s and north into British Columbia, the frustration grows for ski fans with every resort that rolls off the tongue on this list. But money, logistics, history and politics are a tough quartet to crack. There is no easy solution to this complex formula so for now we can take solace in looking forward to the Olympic games in Vancouver next winter and knowing that the skiers from North America know how to play well on the road. Bode Miller and Lindsey Vonn of course are the defending overall champions and the Canadian men’s and women’s teams are accumulating podiums and depth as they build toward the 2010 Games in their own backyard. These achievements have been largely accomplished on European soil so at least success is not being compromised by a lack of home games.

Anyway you look at it, it is nice to open up both the holiday season as well as the continuous racing portion of the alpine season on friendly snow. Speaking of the holidays, does anyone else feel like Thanksgiving is being phased out as an important holiday? I mean, the Christmas decorations have been up in the stores since Halloween for cryin’ out loud! Christmas shows are already on television and tree lighting ceremonies took place in the days just prior to Thanksgiving. People have been pushing up the start to their holiday shopping more and more as well. Some even camp out on Thanksgiving night to be the first in the stores the next morning. Many opening as early as 4a.m. where I live. Even Santa has been at a nearby mall for the last week. Insanity I say! Well, maybe not in the case of Santa. He seemingly has had more than his share of turkey and pumpkin pie over the years so he can afford to miss a holiday meal.

Look, I love the holidays as much as anyone. In fact, they are my favorite time of year. I simply feel bad for those who like to acknowledge Thanksgiving as something more than a speed bump on the way to their holiday office parties. What’s next? We swallow up Halloween and Labor Day as well? Why not just co-opt the 4th of July while we’re at it? Santa and the reindeer dodging bottle rockets would be a sight to see. Opening presents around the pool instead of the tree sounds pretty tempting.

Ahhh…..okay, the venting process is complete. Time to run. I’ve got skiing to see…plus, I’m obviously late to the mall!

Happy Holidays. (Thanksgiving included)

On the tricky slopes of Levi, what Bode and Lindsay accomplished should transcend the context of a singular race. Given that the slalom discipline has not been kind to Miller the last few seasons and has always been one of the weaker components of Vonn’s game, consider their finishes in Lapland: second and first. Bode notching his first slalom win in four years while Lindsay secures her first ever World Cup slalom win. That’s demoralizing…for the rest of the field. It’s a sign that both Miller and Vonn are not taking a victory lap. They are not going down the same road to glory. They have decided to shore up the trouble spots and commit to comprehensive alpine success across all disciplines.

Last season they each grabbed their overall globes largely on the strength of their results in the speed events. So to see them come out and make such demonstrative statements in their first slalom races of the season is eye-popping. It says they are focused on not just winning the overall again, but doing it in true, overall fashion. They want to excel as legitimate five event skiers. In an era of so much specialization, when young skiers are brought along with a narrow focus in either tech or speed in many countries, watching Miller and Vonn take aim across the board is extremely enjoyable. Given the premium on training time and the energy it takes to sustain success in so many disciplines during a long season, it will be fascinating to see if they can keep the pace.

What is clear is that we are witnessing two of the greatest of all time, competing at the same time. It is not often that you get a man and woman from the same country who are at the very top of their sport at the concurrently like this, specially in a sport that the U.S. does not claim as its own like we would for basketball, football and many others. These are good times and this is a terrific start to what could be another magical season.

That’s where my head is at right now. Easy to drift a little since this is always a strange time on the World Cup schedule. Call it the November lull. After the traditional GS openers in Austria, the circuit takes a few weeks off, resumes with a slalom in Finland then takes another sabbatical before revving into weekly competition mode on Thanksgiving weekend. Of course, it’s not like the racers themselves shut it down by any means during the break. It is actually one of the most vital training blocks of the whole year. Many of the U.S. skiers are gathering in Colorado this weekend for an extended camp on North American snow for the first time in many months. They will be joined by select individuals from other nations for training sessions in what typically are the best conditions anywhere on the planet at this time of the calendar year. Since the southern Hemisphere is phasing into their spring and Europe is always unpredictable in early November, often times the higher elevations of the Rockies prove most reliable. They also provide a more conducive environment for longer gate running such as downhill and Super G.

It just seems odd for any major sport to take breaks from competition like this right off the bat. Can you imagine NASCAR opening its season with the Daytona 500 as it always does, but then going away for a month and a half before they start their engines again? It’s true that in skiing, not every discipline competes on every weekend, even during the middle of the season. But I’m thinking from the fan’s perspective on this one. For those of us who follow the racers and the action, it’s hard to get excited about that first event when you know it’s only short lived. It’s like, “hey, great, the season is here…but…now it’s not.” Hard to get invested when there is no rhythm to the beat. Gotta be somewhat tough on the skiers themselves too. We see some of the techies in Solden, a few new and different faces in Levi three weeks later and then an entirely new list of names two more weeks down the road when the speed folks finally click in. If you ski GS but not slalom, you’re going to get some six weeks between races. Training is all fine and good, but after you start running gates for real, don’t you want to immediately build on your result? Whatever the outcome, good or bad, there is a benefit to getting right back out there because no matter how hard you try, it’s always difficult to duplicate the intensity of a competitive, racing environment in training.

Problem is, there may be no good answer to the dilemma. As I said earlier, snow conditions can be sketchy in most places in the fall and even where they are most reliable like North America, both the U.S. and Canada already hold early season races in Lake Louise, Beaver Creek and Aspen. Given the economic situation in the sport and the logistical challenges of staging races at this level, the continent may not be able to offer much more. Perhaps the skiers could stay on the glaciers in Europe for another week or two? Maybe we start the season in North America and then move on to Europe instead of going back and forth? That might also allow for an earlier finish in March when conditions also can take a turn toward the unfavorable and you never like to see the Finals hampered by weather the way they were last year. However, many stops on the tour are comfortable with their existing dates on the calendar and may not be receptive to change. Crafting the schedule is already enough of a headache for the FIS and the national federations because even when the dates are set, inevitably some get altered if not altogether cancelled as weather develops in-season. Money, logistics and politics…they all play a role. And anytime you combine these three ingredients in any elixir, it’s impossible to please everybody.

But then again, what do I know? I’m stuck in a middle seat at 36,000 feet, paying $2.00 for coffee and trying to avoid a bad Kevin Costner movie. (come to think of it, when was his last good one?) All the while looking out and wondering how I can get to that white stuff that is haunting me below.

Happy Halloween.