2011 World Cup – Switzerland, France, Spain

To see all results, click here>

Shane Anderson – February 13, 2011
We survivied a challenging Classic today.  Per Bylund of Sweden set a nice course down a relatively gentle slope of a Pyrenees Mountain.  A good jump, interesting Rapaloosha and steep uphill skate made for some tired racers.

I skied better then I have in awhile in the gate section.  Finally finding my edge to edge quickness and feel for the snow.  After negotiating the flying saucer rapaloosha rather poorly I headed into the skate that resembled the roads of Spain.  A long flat section lead into slight downhill and 180 degree tight switchback turn with about 50 meters of uphill.  Anyways it killed me and many others.

Cory skied well on his training skis.  He has delaminated his race boards.

Shane Anderson 14th

Cory Snyder 21st

Jack Long 28th

Jack Long – February 13, 2011
“I am now looking back on the trip and it went well I got my first World Cup starts of the season and I improved as the trip went on. I still have tons of work to do over the next weeks to prepare myself for the races in Norway and Steamboat. Switzerland, France, and Spain were all very good venues with great hills.”

Cory Snyder – February 12, 2011
Espannaa Day 2 – Sprint Classic
Well today was nothing special…I had a pretty mediocre first run, followed by a crash in the skate. I think my binding was on crooked after I went through the wrap a little rough.  Soo I ended up getting a little tangled in the skate netting annddd started dead last in the second run.  The second run course was a little bit like skiing a skiercross course  for people like 4 inches tall.  Those bumps were craazzyyy!!  But I was still able to move up to 31st…so not all bad.  Hopefully tomorrow I can do better in the classic.  I seemed to like the classic pitch a little it better than the one we skied today!

Shane Anderson – February 12, 2001
Another rough day for USA in Espana.  Lots of mistakes and poor jumping.
21 Shane
25 Jack
31 Cory

Shane Anderson – February 11, 2011
Spain Giant Slalom
Well we are enjoying the sun in Spain.  Espot is an old town high in the Pyrenees right next to a National Park.  The views are pretty stunnig.  The ski area has pretty nice snow considering it has not snowed much here this winter.   The racing pistes are okay.  Today we raced on a longer version of Bashor.  Slightly steep into the jump and then a long flat to the finish area.

My first run was pretty decent.  I had a competitive time and then got slammed by the penalty fairies.  Second run I had to go for it and then I crashed after the jump and hiked three gates to finish last but in 30th.  At least I got 1 wc point.  Hopefully the sprint race goes better tomorrow.  Feeling faster here hope it comes together.

Jack Long – February 11, 2011
Just had my first race in Spain, I finally was able to put together to pretty good runs. I ended up 23rd overall, though I still had 14 seconds in penalties. This is my first top 25 finish of the trip so I am pretty happy with it. I have two more races in Spain before I head back to school. In France I skied OK in the night Sprint and I skied well in the Classic. The number of people at the Meribel races was vastly more than I have ever had to compete in front of before and it caused me to slip a little. I am excited for the Sprint tomorrow.”

Cory Snyder – February 11, 2011
Another beautiful day here in Spain!  We had a pretty gnarly course today!  Not too too steep, but the turns were very tight and after the jump lots of people got knocked out there today.  I had a decent first run, but with lots of penalties.   The second was much better, I was laying down a pretty good run, I nailed the gates after the jump, and carried maybe a bit too much speed on to the flat.  I had to dump all of it when the course got a bit tight.  I was skiing a very tight line, straight and late, and just never got back on line.  I still ended up in 15th place, with 10 penalties.  So, tough race today but hopefully I can nail it in the sprint tomorrow!

Tory Hauser – February 10, 2011
I made it here late last night after a pretty long travel. Late getting outof DIA due to snow and deicing the plane. The flight to London was good as I had a whole row to myself and I was able to get some sleep in. I got a personnel escort to my connection in London as I had to change terminals,
but unfortunately my skis and clothes didn’t. They are now in Barcelona and I am told will be here tomorrow now. I need fresh clothes, toothbrush and contact stuff.  Had to rent alpine gear today to do the course inspection. Beautiful little town, but it’s not like there is a store here.

Shane Anderson – February 8, 2011
Hey everyone.  Finally back on the WWW on my computer.  We are still in Meribel after enjoying a day of trying to see and ski as much of the worlds largest ski area.  Or the most skiable terrain or something.  600 km of trails between several ski areas.  Meribel was the original then Les Menures, Courcheval, and Val Thorens made the three valleys.  I guess there is even another valley now but we didn’t make it that far.  The snow is well it has not snowed since December 25 so that should sum it up.   We skied every variable condition from blue ice to styrofoam moguls and even some CORN snow in select locations on the sides of the pistes.  We had fun.  Rode some interesting chairlifts including the infamous old trash can gondolas and some new contraptions that can not be explained with words.  All I can say is that they know how to get dumb people on the lifts easily.

Okay back to the racing that happened.  We raced on the 92 Olympic race hill.  It was a great venue with injected snow.  Some of the hardest snow I have ever raced on.  Especially for the night Sprint on Sunday night.  First run was a challenging run in which I had some binding difficulties from previous races and failed to test my equipment.  Long story short my training skis are not sharp enough for racing on here.  I had a decent run though and ended up  a few penalties short of the 15 flip.  Second run another new binding in place I was able to ski how I had hoped. Until I hit the turn that took out more than a third of the racers.  You had to be on it after the jump.  I was not. A short extra hike into 27th place.

Classic day was yet another beautiful sunny day.  A t shirt and Sweatshirt was all I needed to wear for most of the day.  We skied a minute and a half of a really fun course winding down the upper section and on some firm snow.  Then magically the lower pitch from the night before had let the sun work some magic and soften it up.  It felt great.  Until I missed the jump line. Having some problems getting down there this year.  Carried great speen in to the RAP had a good skate and wound up in 16th.  Not the best day but really enjoyed the short course.  My time was a 202 and the fastest was 152 so I felt good about everything except the jumping.  Its been hard to put it all together.

We are off to Spain tomorrow.  The trip is really flying by.  I hope you all are enjoying some good POW for me.

Cory Snyder – February 7, 2011
Yesterdays classic was a ccraaankkkerrr!!  They cut the jump back over a meter, the TD said he wanted seven men to make the line..and I am pretty sure he was quite successful!  The thing was a monster! I had another one of those races that was good, just not great.  The course was not quite as turny as I had hoped, but I still skied it okay.  I think I ended up in 21st place overall.  Obviously not what i was looking for.  I think all the little tiny mistakes i am making are starting to add up.  I am starting to develop a pretty terrible habit of droping my inside hand to the snow which pretty much makes the end of my turns wash out.  So I am not really getting the lateral acceleration that I was getting earlier this year.  Hopefully I can pull out of that in Spain!  We are going to make the 9 hourish drive tomorrow…blaaaahhh!!   Follow Cory on his blog:  The Adventures of Cory

Madi McKinstry – Monday, February 7, 2011
Well, after a beautiful drive through amazing mountains on saturday, we made it to Meribel!!! It’s super here, I like it. The night sprint was really fun and we had a lot of spectators. Today was the classic, and well…I managed to brake a pole for the first time. Silly composite material. And I continued on with ripping my glove off with my teeth, having a good rap and then missing the pole handoff. Maura runs really fast it tele boots, and we managed to get me a pole halfway through the skate. It was quite hilarious. I’ve had loads of fun here, but now sadly, it’s  time to scuttle on home…to school…and guess who didn’t do an ounce of homework?

USTSA – Monday, February 7, 2011
After a night race on Sunday followed by a Classic race today, we have no reports yet from the exhausted racers, but the results of today’s classic have been posted.  For the US women, Madi McKinstry finished 13th and Zoe Taylor in 16th position.  Cory Snyder was the top US male racer with at 23rd place finish, followed by Shane Anderson  in 27th and Jack Long in 33rd.
Zoë Taylor – Sunday, February 6, 2011
Today was a nighttime classic. That means training in the day, then lunch, then tuning then a race beginning at 4 and going through the dark. Let’s just say this course was Howelson Hill on steroids! It was super steep and Jack’s way of describing it is: “Imagine an ice-cube”. It was bad. But we all survived, many of us slid, slipped, skidded and hiked but we made it through! I ended up in 16th so all in all it was a good day!

Cory Snyder – February 4, 2011
Well we are back in action.  I had a solid run today, not great, not even good, just solid.  I skied more the way I wanted to, I just hit a brick wall on the really sweet uphill skate….But the skiing was good so thats what I was looking for.  I missed the jump line by ohhh about 6 inches, and I lost a little speed on the flat before the jump, so at least I know I can jump!  So tomorrow we are driving to Meribel for a sprint and a classic.  Along the way I will have buy a new pair of poles after breaking one yesterday…could have been part of my skating problems today, Shane’s spare poles were a smidge short.  Looking forward to hard snow in Meribel!

Roy McKinstry – February 4
Another beautiful day in Thyon for todays classic. The course was very demanding and approaching 3 minutes in length. Shane drew bib # 2 for todays run and skied well. He just missed the jump line and received a 3 second penalty pushing him out of the top 10 and ending in 12th place. Cory had a solid run and finished 20th, Jack was 33rd.  Aiden Rohde finished 39th.  Madi ended up 12th with 3 penalties on the jump and Zoe battling a cold gave a solid effort and rounded out the field in 21st.

Now we head for Meribel.

Todays podium:

Men

Eirik Rykhus NOR

Phillipe Lau FRA

Mattias Wagenius SWE

Women

Amelie Reymond

Sandrine Meyer

Sigrid Rykhus

Zoe Taylor – Thursday, February 3, 2011
After a long flight from Denver to London, a missed flight to Geneva and missing skis we finally made it to Switzerland. We rented a car and drove to Thyon (yes, we did get a bit lost). Today was the first day of racing and the first run went very well, however, being sick, the second run caused me some difficulty in breathing so i didn’t do as well. I ended up in 18th out of 22 which, for my first ever World Cup, isn’t too bad! Tomorrow is a classic which promises to be pretty tough! Hopefully I will be able to breathe and push through it!   Follow Zoe on her blog.

Shane Anderson – Thursday, February 3, 2011

Well we are back at it.  Racing in the beautiful Swiss alps.  Perfect blue sky day with amazing views in every direction.  The snow is very hard and it showed in our skiing today.  The Euro’s really whooped up on us today.  The Sprint hill here is fairly long.  Starts out steep and then flattens to a large jump that does not have much of a landing hill.  The second run mens line was at 29 meters.  Then into another long gate section and into the rap and then a long mostly downhill skate with some roller whoops.  It will be better tomorrow.

Amilie Reymond 1

Sigrid Rhykus 2

Sandrine Meyer 3

Madi McKinstry 17
Zoe Taylor 18

Phil Lau 1

Bastien Dayer 2

Chris Lau 3

Shane Anderson 16

Cory Snyder 35

Jack Long 38

Madi McKinstry – Wednesday, February 2, 2011
So, today I skied from 8:30 to 12:30, and the Norwegians let us all train on their course. The jump was super fun!! It had a nice little lip, which I think they are going to cut down, but it has a great landing and doesn’t hurt my legs to land. I love it! The rap is a tad bumpy…but it’s humongo, and functional. I’m excited for opening ceremonies tonight. We went to Crans-Montana the other day to watch my Swedish cousin race in World Junior Alpine Championships, and that town is really cool as well. We also skied over to Mont Fort yesterday, and the veiws were SPECTACULAR! Maura thought that she was on top of the world. Steamboat got a “cold” day today, they say it’s -40 F. Which is so not fair, seeing as it hasn’t happened in like a millenium, and of course I’m not there to witness it. But then again, I’m in Switzerland and I can see the Matterhorn out my bedroom window…so ha!

USTSA – Tuesday, February 1, 2011
US racers are arriving in Thyon this week to prepare for races on Friday and Saturday.  Shane Anderson and Cory Snyder have stayed in Europe since the races in Austria and have traveled and trained with Team Denmark.  Madi McKinstry, Jack Long, Zoe Taylor and Aiden Rohde will be joining them for these races.  Most will continue on to Meribel France next week and then Jack, Shane and Cory will compete in Espot Spain as well.  Check back for updates on their races and experiences.