Craziness - Königssee World Cup part 2 - Team Event

Ah, the team event.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the team event is super super super fun! Unlike our individual races where we each take 2 runs in our own discipline, the team event takes us all, throws us into a bottle, caps it, and shakes. To recap:

• Men's skeleton goes first
• Women's bobsled goes 2nd, their starting order based on the finish times of the men's skeleton
  
• Women's skeleton goes 3rd, our starting order based on the combined times of the men's skeleton and women's bobsled
• Men's 2-man bobsled goes last, their starting order based on all the combined times.
  
• Overall combined time of the 4 disciplines determines the winning team.
  

With a lighthearted atmosphere off the ice, and a serious atmosphere on the ice since your teammates are counting on you, it's a good time. Each team puts together a little video intro:


And then the race begins. By the time women's skeleton came around, we were sitting in 6th place (I think). And then came my run...

Um...(Romania is before me, so I'm about a minute and a half in).


I included Romania's run there so you can see what a close call looks like. She hit the same place I did, but managed not to hit the second time farther down the chicane on the right. I, unfortunately, did not. I hit at the end, which made me go so late into the next curve that I flew off, and it escalated from there, going later and later into the curves until I skidded head down. Embarassing! But a good lesson in how not to do it.

It looks pretty crazy, but trust me when I say it actually felt worse than it looks! All the swooping and skidding meant I got lost, and couldn't figure out which curve I was in since there were more pressures and loops than usual, and I kept flying off the ends of curves. Couldn't regain a rhythm. Sucky.

I do, however, just LOVE the looks on my teammate's faces. Here are a couple stills for you:




BUT, I'm SUPER happy this didn't happen in the women's race, though I still felt badly for letting my teammates down. They were so sweet, coming to help me with my sled. Sigh. At least I didn't have the most memorable crash / experience of the week, and didn't hit my head - meaning no concussion and no being banned from sliding to recover. Phew again! And amazingly we didn't finish last, so that was a consolation. Of sorts.

Sorry teammates!