Back from Europa Cup

I got back to Salt Lake late Sunday night. Took Monday off from work, which worked well considering the blizzard. My sleep schedule is still really off and I am fighting a mild cold that set in after getting back home. I have been remiss in posting, just as with Italy, so I will try to recap as best I can. First things first - I have had it with United, Lufthansa, and the TSA.

I travelled with Kelly Magnuson from Frankfurt to Salt Lake via LAX on the way home. Both of our sleds got stuck in LAX. United tried to deliver her sled to my house Monday afternoon. Then they tried to deliver my sled to the house she is staying at 6am on Tuesday. My sled didn't arrive until Friday at 2:30 AM! At which time they knocked on my front door to deliver it. Seriously! I called them Thursday afternoon to see where my sled was, and why I hadn't been contacted for a few days. They told me it was slated for delivery between 9pm and 3am. He said I could sign a note and leave it for the delviery guy, but I would waive my rights to reporting damged items. I told him that I would sign for it, but had him contact the delivery agency to let them know not to bother after 11pm. He came back and said it may be as late as midnight, and we left it there. I was fairly certain that they would botch this as well, and they did. I really want to put my airline experience behind me as it was abyssmal from start to finish.

Even before I set foot in the airport to head to Europe, I had hassles trying to use a United voucher that I had received in October when my sled didn't arrive at the airport with me for team trials. During that situation, the way the agents took care of things from check-in to reclaiming my sled redeemed the situation and I was looking forward to using United again. I was also hoping to use the voucher to defray my expenses. I was going to book on United.com, but there was no way to redeem the voucher there, so I called an agent. I booked the flight and was told I had over a week to mail the voucher to them. I went online and chose seats. Two days later the system couldn't find my reservation. I called and it had been cancelled - apparently the original agent set a 72 hour window for the voucher. I rebooked the flight at a slightly higher faire and had the agent choose from whatever seats were available. Kelly booked the same itinerary, and she discovered that the fare had dropped a few hundred dollars. United gave her a voucher to cover the difference. By the time I called the fare was higher than what I paid. I received a call from United a few days after re-booking to let me know that I couldn't use the voucher because one of the legs was on Lufthansa. Great! Why didn't either of the agents I talked to tell me this?

Since it was a mad dash to the airport after the final America's Cup race, I didn't have time to remove my runners as usual. Instead, I packed the sled with the runners still installed as is actually standard procedure. The special sled bag is designed to protect them from even an abusive trip through the airport. The downside is that the whole package weighs quite a bit. Allen Blackwell offered to drop me at the airport, which is good because the roads were not great and he drives an Audi wagon. I-80 was severely congested - essentially closed, so we weaved through the city to get to the airport. I made a decision at the airport that I would lash my other two pair of runners to my sled instead of taking a seperate runner case. This left me with my sled, another checked bag, and then a carry on. I would come to regret this decision in about five minutes.

I raced into the airport with my gear to check in, and saw that Kelly and Audrey were midway through the process. In order to expedite things, I went to another available agent. He informed me that my sled would cost $381 in overweight fees. Kelly and Audrey were already gone at this point, so I asked the lady that had helped them. She echoed that that was the correct fee. I petitioned the guy at the counter. Then a baggage guy chimed in and said that the agent had no choice otherwise he would be risking his job. Odd statement, but all would become clear.

I had about twenty minutes until my plane left, so I slapped down some plastic and made my way to security. Ironically, I ran into John Ball (Chair of the Board of Directors for the USBSF) in security and told him about the charge. The board, which had expressed their mission as being focused on raising funds and finding sponsors, was new in August of 07. I don't know much about these matters or how long it takes to get things in the pipeline, but at that moment I was compelled to ask why we still had no sponsors or even agreements with airlines. I really like John, but I was pretty upset about my freshly charged fees. The coincidence of seeing him moments after being skewered seems too perfect - like I was some real-world object lesson.

To add to my ire, Kelly informed me that she had only been charged $100 for a sled of the same weight. Audrey just $50, although her sled weighted less than mine or Kelly's. Apparently the deal their agent gave them had somehow made a baggage guy upset. He was of course standing over the shoulder of my agent as I checked in. The nice agent is now being reprimanded and possibly fired.

Flying to SFO, I was reminded of the lameness of United by the aroma of the adjacent lav. Then another twelve hours with a metal box where my feet would have liked to gone. Seats I had carefully tried to avoid the first time I booked. But of course, I was still glad to be going and focused on the excitement of competing in St Moritz.

We arrived in Munich on Sunday at 6pm and drove to St Moritz, arriving around midnight. Our first day of official training in St Moritz was set for the next day around noon. Luckily my sled was still assembled from Park City, so I had no real sled prep to do. Monday morning we did a partial track walk and then went to get our sleds prepped for the day. For me this meant simply putting rock in the runners. Only at this point did I realize that my runners were very bent. I got some help to bend the runners as best we could in the minutes before training began.

Later on, I took the sled apart and found that whatever force crunched my runners also gouged the rod that holds my saddle. That is some serious force, and it left my sled misaligned and slow for the duration of my competitions. Thanks United/Lufthansa!