Sunday, March 21, 2010

World Cup Finals


I just got back from Europe. I had a really successful trip. I got 13th at both events in Sweden and another 13th in Spain. The day before the comp in Sierra Nevada I got the stomach flu. I was really weak and had not eaten more than a piece of bread for breakfast. It was really difficult to find the energy to compete, but I really wanted to. The conditions went really bad that morning and you could not see anything. When I was standing up top of the course right before my run I had to do a double take to make sure I was in the right line. I talked to other competitors and they said they also had a hard time making sure they were in the right line. I landed the top air and made a couple of turns and could not see any thing, I dug my tip into a mogul and went flying over my head. I finished my run and made it to finals since the conditions were so bad enough other skiers had bad runs too. Finals went a little better, I made some mistakes on my airs, but I skied really fast. I made some big turns out of top air and I came into bottom faster than I had in training an went really big on my Back flip and almost fell. I got FIS Rookie of the Year for the World Cup. I got this huge crystal trophy. Thankfully, I also got a metal suitcase with it to bring it home. This season was a great season for me. I made the US ski team at US selections with a 4th and a 2nd place. I got 8th at the Gold Cup in Steamboat, I got 3rd, 2nd, and two 1st at Nor-Am's this year which gave me the over all Nor-Am title. I got 16th at my first world cup, and 13th at four of the others. I made the finals 5/6 times at world cups. This year has been my best year ever for skiing so far. Thanks for following me and cheering me on.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Spain, Sierra Nevada

Yesterday was a travel day to Spain. It was a long day for not traveling that far. My bags did not arrive when I did, but one of my teammates was coming in later that evening so I ended up getting them by the end of the day. While I was waiting I got to go to the beach of Malaga. It was cool to be able to go the the beach and the mountains in the same day. Spain is really pretty, the roads in Malaga all have tall palm trees on the sides and then the crazy Europeans driving. The roundabouts here are kind of funny, because they have stop lights in them. (I thought that the roundabouts worked because you don't have to stop in the middle, guess I was wrong). We walked along the beach for a little while, and came to this outdoor exercise area. It was like play ground equipment for exercise. I tried everything out, it was really funny because people were seriously using it, even though there was hardly any resistance on it. We went to a little Pizzeria on the side of the road and ate some good pizza. European pizzas are delicious. So far the food in Spain is really good. After we walked around Malaga we headed back to the airport. It was a little tricky finding the right roads around there, because the road system is crazy. We went to the air port picked up my bags, and my teammate. We headed out for Sierra Nevada. I got some pretty cool pictures of Spain.
Today we trained at Sierra Nevada. It is really nice and sunny here, there was not a cloud in the sky today, so we could see really far. It is beautiful up here you can see forever. The top of the mountain is really windy, so the snow is not slushy. It is actually pretty dry here. The course was really hard underneath all of the wind blown snow that softened it up. The turns are really abrupt, and the jumps have lots of drop. It feels like you are going really slow into them, but you actually get a lot of air. I took a back flip to my back today, because I thought I was going to small. The course should be better tomorrow, because they are going to shape the jumps better and it usually gets better after the course gets skied.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Traveling to Europe

Yesterday was a long day of traveling. I got a bout three hours of sleep in 24hours. The worst part of that is waiting till it is a reasionable time to go to bed. The flight was filled with lots of crying babies, and I was in the middle on a full airplane from Minneapolis to Amsterdam. I got to go through a lot of places I have never been before.
The mountain is pretty cool, the snow is not great here because it is raining right now. Today there was a bit of fresh snow on top of some icy snow. It got pretty warm up so the snow got sticky today. The jumps on the course are pretty flat coming into them, but the middle is a descent pitch. The turns are really close together, and you have to go straight for a while if you want to get off the airs with good air. The jumps are pretty flat so hopefully they will put more up on them. I am really happy/excited to be here right now.

Friday, March 5, 2010

VICTORY !

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Vail freestyle skier Heidi Kloser, 17, is making this moguls thing look easy. It isn't that easy in reality. The state of Kloser's ribs is a testament to that fact.
Kloser, a Ski and Snowboard Club athlete, overcame a rib-rattling crash Thursday to win Friday's Nor-Am dual moguls in Steamboat Springs. With the win, she captured the 2009-10 Nor-Am overall moguls crown and a spot on the World Cup tour for its final three events of the season.

“I didn't know at first. I figured I was first or second in the standings,” Kloser said. “I wasn't completely sure until we were waiting for awards. Scott Rawles told me.”

Rawles is the head moguls coach of the U.S. Ski Team, and when he delivered the news, Kloser's reaction was rather matter-of-fact.

“I guess I wasn't really surprised,” she said. “I had good results. I was really happy.”

In fairness, Kloser has had a matter-of-fact approach to this season, which has been made up of a lot of firsts. In December, she made the U.S. Freestyle C-Team by finishing second in a FIS race in Winter Park.

While the tour was in the United States, Kloser competed on the World Cup level, making the finals — top 16 — in two of her three starts. As the World Cup went back to Europe and took a break for the Olympics, Kloser returned to Nor-Am competition. All she did there was rattle off six top-10 finishes including a win in individual moguls in Apex, British Columbia, last Saturday.

She took the Nor-Am moguls lead into the Thursday's event, but a mistake on Top Air, the jump on the upper half of Steamboat's mogul course, put her prospects in severe danger.

“I just got a little caught out, and stepped on my skis coming down,” Kloser said. “I crashed pretty hard. I had to finish the run. Once I finished the run, I realized what happened.”

She finished 24th Thursday, dropping down to fourth in the Nor-Am points. More importantly, Kloser had dislodged some of her ribs. She went to physical therapy, became one with the ice pack and took two Advils.

Kloser got her ribs taped up Friday morning and went straight to qualifications for the dual moguls — there was no time for a regular run to see how she would react.

“I was excited and ready to race today,” Kloser said. “It still hurt, but it was all right.”

Kloser breezed through qualifying and then worked her way through the 16-racer bracket. She met up with Canada's Chelsea Hentituk in the finals, and it was revenge time. Hentituk had beaten Kloser in the dual-moguls semifinals in Apex on Sunday.

Kloser got through Top Air cleanly against Hentituk, but still trailed. Kloser passed the Canadian in the middle section of the course and never looked back.

“I didn't want her to get anything on me,” Kloser said. “I was just trying to have clean air and have a clean exit, and was just keeping my feet together through the moguls and had my eyes up.”

With the win, Kloser has a spot in next week's moguls and dual moguls events in Are Sweden, with a stop in Sierra Nevada, Spain, on March 18. After that, it's off to nationals in Squaw Valley Calif.

Kloser said her goal for the World Cup events is to make the finals out of qualifying and see what points she can accumulate. She sits at No. 32 in the world after her three previous World Cup events.

The U.S. Freeskiing Team will make decisions later this year as far as reorganizing its ranks, but the Nor-Am overall moguls win as well as future World Cup and nationals finishes could help Kloser make her case.

“Moving up is always nice,” Kloser said. “I don't know if it will happen this year, but you always hope.”

Sports Editor Chris Freud can be reached at 970-748-2934 or cfreud@vaildaily.com.