My second stop of FWQ series was in Pitztal. I was really excited and I was looking forward to it because I knew I can score a good result here.
“This competition is not classical like all the others, where you have a venue and the judges who watch every competitor and judge him in 5 different categories. In this competition the only judge is time.”
This year the organisers had quite a challenge finding the venue with enough snow.
Everything started in 24th of February in Hexenkessel, some sort of bar I think, where we had the mandatory riders meeting. Usually we have a face check with the mountain guides and the organizers but the weather wasn’t cooperating. So we’ve seen the race venue only on photos. Which was okay but the problem with this is that it’s hard to get the feeling about the size.
The next day on 25th of February all the riders met at the bottom station of “glacier express” from where we headed up on the mountain where we had to pass the safety checks and then ski touring to the start.
The start was on Linker Fernerkogel, 3278 meters high. A nice tour with 700 vertical meters, great for warming up. And I was going really slow because I didn’t want to sweat. Reason? The backpack was too small for an extra shirt. 😀 At the top I realized that I was the first of the riders at the top. I “won” the slowest approach to the top of Linker Fernerkogel.
When all the riders came to the top we had the last safety briefing and after that the race started. First women snowboard and ski, then men snowboard and ski.
“My starting number was 26. On the start I pushed myself 2 or 3 times to get the speed and then into downhill posture. My skis black crows Anima were literally flying down the mountain on top of 15 cm of fresh new snow. I was in my own world enjoying every second.”
But then the second turn came and I missed the ideal line, I was forced to make a turn on fresh snow and I lost a lot of speed. Luckily the terrain was steep so I quickly gained the speed back. After this turn the steepest part came and at the end it turned out that it was the trickiest too. The terrain was convex so we couldn’t see the next gates. When I was over this convex part I realized that my line is going straight to the gates, where I should make a turn, at least in theory. But the reality was different. There was no more fresh snow just the tracked and packed one and the result was crash. I lost a ski and all the speed so I had to push myself all over the flat part. And hopes for a good result were gone.
I came through the finish line with a time 6 minutes and 4 seconds.
Again I was in a bad mood at the end because I know how I can ski and how I did ski. But despite the crash all the other things were superb. We had a bluebird day with fresh snow and amazing scenery. Especially the finish which was at the end of the glacier.
RangerJohn 