Hello from Derby NY!
I am so happy to have gotten 17th in the first DH race at St. Moritz, scoring my first ever DH World Cup points!
This result will help me tremendously because it means that I now have my own guaranteed spot for DH for the rest of the World Cup Season. I will still have to fight for SG spots, but having the certainty of the DH spot helps me with planning the season and guarantees more World Cup opportunities ahead for me.
It felt so amazing to cross the finish line and see the 17th on the TV screen. My mom has been telling me to visualize this feeling for some time now, and while I have taken her advice, visualizing was nowhere near as incredible as feeling it for real!
Although this result doesn’t change who I am or how I ski, it does somewhat validate the tremendous amount of work I’ve put into being competitive on the World Cup and most significantly it allows me the opportunity to keep racing World Cup this season.
I genuinely thought that St. Moritz might be my last chance at a World Cup, but unlike in Lake Louise where I felt the pressure of this reality heavily, I went into St. Moritz with a totally different mindset. I knew this might be my last chance and decided to just try to enjoy every moment (something I certainly didn’t do in Lake Louise) and be proud of my skiing and effort. (I will add that I also got four new pairs of DH skis that felt great from training run 1 which helped my confidence tremendously.)
Mentally, I was in a much better place than Lake Louise, but ultimately I still felt the same nerves, went through the same race day routine and had a pretty similar approach to my race run, which truly goes to show you that any day can be your day and the most important thing to do is to keep showing up and giving your all.
A good example of this approach was my second DH race at St. Moritz. The second day the course was longer with an extra 30 seconds of flats at the top (it was shortened the first day because of bad visibility), but I was excited to carry the momentum from the first day into the second race. I had a great plan and attacked the whole way down. Unfortunately I finished 40th after losing most of my time on the flats on the top because the course was in the sun and slowing down for the later bibs, we didn’t quite nail the wax call, and gliding (skiing on flats) is not my specialty. Even though I didn’t come top 30 and score again, I had some of my best turns of the weekend that run and was super proud of my skiing. This was another huge win of the weekend for me because I didn’t let the results define how I felt about myself and my skiing.
You can watch both my DH races at the links here:
I don’t post my video often because I know there is still so much to work on with my skiing (and there’s a lot better skiers to watch!). But I’m very proud of some of these turns, the progress I’ve made in my downhill and most importantly the fight all the way to the finish line. I know there is still a lot to fix, which is honestly exciting, because I know I am not even close to my top speed yet :) I’m very excited to keep working hard towards finding more speed, but for now I am really looking forward to a week at home to rest, reset and gain some strength in the gym!
I want to say a massive thank you for all the kind messages sent to me, both after my struggles in Lake Louise (probably one of the low points of my career) and after my 17th in St. Moritz (probably one of the high points so far :)). I am so grateful that my support system is here for me through the highs and the lows!
PS. Here is the link for the Women’s World Cup DH Schedule if any of you find yourself in Europe this winter and want to come watch :)
Good luck this weekend. Glad you’ll get the starts. Could you comment on whether you’ll ski tech anytime soon?
way to go , fabulous start to the season