Igls ICC - Summary & Pictures

EDIT: To clarify, I'm not back in Europe, I'm just posting updates on the part of the trip that didn't get blogged about while I was there (too sick). I know, these random out-of-time posts can be confusing!

To update you on Igls, I'm not going to go through the trip day by day, but instead post the highlights. It's been over a month, and it's difficult to remember exactly how everything happened through the haze of hydrocodone cough syrup that inundated the two weeks immediately after coming home! Hah!

So, after racing in Italy, and after our amazing wine tasting trip to Piemonte, we did our 5 countries (one country twice) in 6 hours trip:

• Italy into Switzerland
• Through Switzerland, to Lichtenstein
• Very quickly through Lichtenstein and into Austria
• Austria into Germany, to pick Brad up at the Munich airport (yay!!!) and swap our SUV for a van to fit the four of us
• Germany back into Austria to go back to the Innsbruck area to race at Igls

Phew.

Loaded up in the van, Brad's first few minutes in Europe.


The first few days were overcast, and you couldn't see ANY mountains around. Finally, just before the race, it cleared up and he believed me about the huge mountains.


Our room was really cool, a corner room with a huge corner window and table set-up. Quite nice!


We also visited the Rettl's (parents to Martin Rettl, former Austrian Olympic medalist and current USA World Cup coach), and had breakfast / tea with them. They are so nice and helpful and unforgettable. They let us leave sled bags & runner cases with them while we traveled around, so that we wouldn't have to carry as much with us, and Mr. Rettl also came to the track on race day to help us carry our sleds out of the track at the finish!


It was awesome to have Brad there, and the best part was that the race Jury let him forerun for both training and the races! He actually got more runs in Igls than we did! It was a good chance to get out of Park City and see a new track, re-set his mental system a bit.

His fellow forerunner, his "nemisis" hee hee, was a 12 year old or so local boy. He had great form, but lacked the body weight to really control the sled and gain momentum. He'll be great when he gets a little older:




Here is Brad at the start:


Igls is a pusher's track, meaning that even if you are an amazing skeleton driver, if your push is slow you're going to lose. The track is short, and you need as much momentum as possible in order to have a fast time. I think this is Tress:


Here I am at the start, waiting for the girl ahead of me to go, keeping my helmet warm under my jacket, and getting ready for my race run:




Pushing off for run number 1:


I did some great bike sponsor logo placement for the trip (Fox Racing and Stan's NoTubes, sponsors I love so much I give them advertisement in skeleton too!):


I can't wait to win a medal in Europe - you get amazing awards! Here is Amy Gough with her 2nd place award. As you can see it's quite useful!




My first run was a 17th place, and my second run was a 16th place, but unfortunately I didn't beat the same people each time, which meant that 17th and 16th together equals 18th! Heh, kinda ironic.

I'm pretty stoked with my finish though. The field is super competitive, with the top 10 women being pretty comparable to the top women on the World Cup circuit. It was a good race.