Sunday, December 08, 2002
On the Bus
12:30 AM Andy Finch, Kyle Wilkens, and I, are 2 hours into the 4 hour bus ride from Tandadalen Sweden to Oslo Norway........
All the Alpine events ended yesterday so everyone else with the team already made the bus ride this morning. We stayed for Andy’s Half Pipe competition. Training for this night competition started at 4:15 this afternoon. I woke up this morning at the normal jet lag appointed time of 4 A.M. then went to breakfast at 6. I filled the rest of the morning answering email and trying to coordinate a January travel schedule….. 6 World Cups, the FIS World Championships, 2 Jeep King of the Mountain events, A Grand Prix, A Van’s Triple Crown, and the X-games, all in January are making it a juggling act for sure. At about 11:00 I went Cross Country skiing for about an hour and a half (yep…sore). It’s amazing to see all the families out on the cross-country tracks. You see parents towing babies in little sleds here with the same frequency you would see babies in strollers at the mall in the US. When I made it back, Kyle and I went to lunch and Finch did some more sleeping. After lunch we caught a sweet episode of Baywatch Hawaii then eventually made our way up to the pipe for the start of practice.
Finch was ruling it, just riding at whole different level from the rest of the field, but he crashed on the second hit of his first qualifying run and it was over. All the way to Sweden and 15 or so seconds into it…….done. “I can’t believe it.” He said, “All last year the worst I ever placed in any half pipe comp was 9th, even when I was totally injured.” The qualifying procedure in FIS World Cups consists of two runs places 1-5 from the first run go direct to the finals, and only places 6-25 get a second chance to fill 5 more spots in the finals. With his 2nd hit crash Finch didn’t make the 25. “I wish I could just let it go, but I have a way of stewing about it for a long time……Damn.” Finch said. So that’s it, we went back to the condo packed up and watched Downhill Skiing live from Beaver Creek and Lake Louise, then got on the bus at 10:30. In the morning Finch heads to Saas Fee Switzerland for a Rip Curl photo shoot, then to Breckenridge for the Van’s Triple Crown, Park City for the Grand Prix the next week, then Home for Christmas. Kyle will be off to Whistler with the Alpiners, then to Park City. I’m headed home until Wednesday then will meet up with Finch and the rest of the Half Pipe team (who are currently training in Mammoth) in Breckenridge, then to park City with everyone the next week.
Finch Grabbing Some Tail During Practice
