The following is an update from Georgia Simmerling
It is now almost February and the last three months have gone by in a blur. The season is going by so fast!
I have just come home back to Vancouver for a short break before I hit the road again. I think my coaches like teasing us with home time by just giving us 48 hours off sometime. But nevertheless I am taking this time off with gratitude.
My last three weeks have been very positive. After yet another too short time off at home for Christmas my team flew out to Toronto where we drove up to Collingwood, Ontario for our first post Christmas races. We have NorAm tech races at Craigleith Mountain (can we even call those things mountains?) for the Slalom races and Georgian Peaks for the GS races. The SL races were, and my parents still crack jokes at me, strictly training for me, because I never train the discipline. They were… interesting. The Gs races were the first gs races of the year for me and went surprisingly all right. I think I finished the week with two top results.
After the races we BOOKED it to the Toronto Airport to catch our flight to Munich, Germany. You know your coach was a little stressed in the morning about the time schedule when he A) shows up to the ski hill in the morning with his jeans under his ski pants and his collared shirt under his jacket (all conveniently ready to take off before entering the first class check in line at the airport at the end of the day, and B) still has his ski boots on at the Airport… We made the flight.
Exceeding the expectations of living the life of a ski racer my teammate Kelly McBroom from Canmore, Alberta (the only other speed skier on my team, who also took the SL races at Craigleith as “training”) and I immediately after arriving in Munich drove with our assistant/speed coach Walter to Spital, Austria for a Super G the following morning. And the answer is yes, ski races do get jet lag just like the rest of the world… We arrived at nighttime, unpacked all our skis and luggage and tried to get as much sleep as possible.
The Super G race was excruciatingly flat and those Euro girls took it to us. I skied well which was the only positive thing out of the day, but I definitely got my butt kicked on the flats of the course, which was unfortunately 3 quarters of the race.
From there we drove to Kirchburg, Austria. Kirchburg is now the “headquarters” shall I say for the entire Canadian Team while in Europe. We have a hotel to ourselves and an awesome and very challenging training run at the local hill 2 minutes from the hotel. We trained there for about 2 days, if I remember correctly, and then packed up the vans and hit the road for the land of amazingly delicious food and cappuccino’s. OF COURSE I’m talking about Italy! By the end of the long drive we finally made it to the town of Caspoggio, located from what I remember of the drive, in the middle of nowhere. We arrived at our adorable hotel all starving. After an extremely tasty salad buffet, homemade soup AND pasta, I was stuffed. I had definitely not arrived in Italy with the understanding that soup and pasta are the appetizers alone and soon realized this when not only a whole meat and potatoes course appeared on my plate, but a dessert. By the end of the week I had to say no either one of the four meals in order to leave the table at the end of dinner walking.
This was going to be our first ever Europa Cup Speed event. I was a little nervous… The first training run of downhill went, with a little surprise, fairly well! Being immersed and racing with the Europeans takes a little hit to my confidence the first 48 hours I have come to realize. So this time I mentally tried to stop that before happening at this race. I knew I was skiing well and that I could be up there in the top 5 by the end of the week. And my second training run I proved that to myself. I came down in 3rd. I was very happy with that final training run and was ready to kick some euro butt the following day, the day that counted. It is always the challenge especially in downhill to treat the race the exact same as the training runs, but I focused on the exact same thing I had been the last two days and I crossed the finish line in 4th. I was happy. My teammate Kelly was only 4 tenths behind me but 8 spots back. Every split second counts.
That evening I got to experience my first bib draw! Bib draws are for the top 15 ranked skiers who get to pick their starting position for the following day’s race. We drove up to the bottom of the mountain where there was a crowd of locals and a bright stage full of little children wearing the bibs over their jackets. The announcer called up the top 15 ranked girls and one by one we got to come up on stage and pick the child wearing the bib you wanted for the following day. It was a very fun experience, a little more excitement and commotion compared to North America, that’s for sure. I picked position 12.
The following day was the last race day and our last day in Caspoggio. I skied fast, similar to the previous day, minus one small mistake close to the bottom of the course, which in the end, cost me. I still finished in a respectable 7th position. The week had been a successful one.
We were sad to leave, primarily because we now had such high expectations of the food at our next hotel, which couldn’t possible compare. But we were excited. Kelly and I had earned the chance to race in the following World Cup Downhill race, happening in the posh Cortina, Italy.
We drove back to Kirchburg, trained a couple days, and were off on the road again to our next destination to meet up with World Cup team.
The first two days of training were cancelled due to an ENORMOUS amount of snow, which had fallen. We spent our time recovering in the hotel from a steady go-go-go trip so far, walked in town for a bit one day, sipping cappuccinos, reading, and playing cards.
The next day the sun came out and it was beautiful. Cortina, Italy is by far the most gorgeous place I have ever skied at so far. The top of the downhill is a straight shoot imbedded in a bowl of sheer mountain faces. Here I had to remind myself over and over that it was just another ski race, and I was skiing well. Race day arrived and I was ready to go. I skied well that day and finished a respectable 49th. I was not thrilled in the least with my result, but it was a positive learning experience being around the best female racers in the world, and composing my nervousness and excitement into a decent run to end a great trip!
This year’s 
