World Championships - Episode 1

First of all, just making it to World Championships in and of itself is amazing.

(And actually, just GETTING there was crazy. The traffic was backed up for hours, so we took a little back-road trip from Igls to Königssee.


Scenic, and someplace we would otherwise never see.
)

Second, it's an amazing experience, especially when hosted in Europe, since winter sports are the same to them as football is to the USA. Screens are everywhere so spectators could see the whole run, rather than just little pieces where they stood.


In the US, we're lucky if more than tens or hundreds of people come check out a skeleton race - at World's, there were thousands. Upon thousands.

Driving to the track was thus, well, difficult.


For every race, and even for training days, the stands were full.


The day before racing kicked off, there was an opening ceremonies, where all the nations marched into the old town square. Local youth athletes carried the name of each nation.


Things were a little crazy, and we ended up standing in the middle of a road for about 20 minutes, blocking traffic. Oops.


Finally we got to a'marching.


The square was packed!


And we had an amazing performance by T.J. Wheels...um, yes, roller skates and juggling. Crazy, and yet talented.


Followed by fireworks.


The next day, racing was on.

I was a bit nervous, since training hadn't been going well for me. In fact, there was an ice statue that pretty much epitomizes my sliding:


(I almost crashed a couple days before racing, and the coaches have video that they will send me eventually. I'll put up a blog post showing that footage when I get it.)

Thankfully, I put the pieces together the last day of training, phew! Racing to come in the next entry...