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!

Italy - part 1

Here is the first post from my trip to compete at the Europa Cup in Cesana, Italy. I leave on the 12th to compete in Europe again. America's Cup in Park City is next week, and we have no ice time scheduled for the first week of the new year. I have a number of issues to sort out with my runners and equipment, but they can only be worked out on the ice. I want to perform my best here in Park City, and I don't want to go back to Europe unprepared. It is pretty frustrating, and I don't understand why our athletes gets short-changed. I hope an email I sent will result in some answers. If I weren't so completely broke from the first half of the season, I would try to purchase ice time directly through the park.

Back in one piece

Okay, so they do have the internet in Italy, but it was pretty scarce in the small village of Sauze di Cesana where I was stayed at the Hotel Sauze di Cesana. The hotel computer is on the net, but the service is not really conveyed to the patrons. The best solution I found was a few towns away in Cesana Torinese where they have a library and a tourist info station. Both offer inexpensive net access. The day before I left I found a cafe with slow free wifi. Ultimately, I didn't get on the net to do much aside from filing my USADA forms for Q1 2008. Since I didn't do any updates from the field, I will post entries that will show up with earlier post dates to fill in the blanks.

Last night I made my first runs down the Park City track since getting home. The cold I picked up in Italy is lingering, and I probably should have just gone home and rested. The desire to get back on ice was too great, and I had a couple of nice runs. It was good to see everybody up at the track, and I also got to try out a new piece of gear. I will elaborate on that later.

Getting there is half the fun

The week prior to my departure went too quickly. I had fun forerunning the World Cup training and race in spite of a lot of waiting around for runs. I took Thurdsday the 6th as my "floating holiday" at work so I could forerun the actual race. It was also to serve as a day of preparation, and I did get some things done; however, I had forgotten that my work party was that evening.

I departed for Torino On Saturday morning, and my flight was delayed for an hour while the plane was deiced. We stopped in Atlanta and Milan along the way, and arrived at just after three in the afternoon on Sunday. Unlike the Atlanta leg where my gut was in serious pain for some reason (I really thought my appendix was ready to blow), I slept the entire leg from Atlanta to Milan and was fortunate to not get charged for oversize, overweight, and additional baggage. While in the Milan airpoirt, I ate my first slice of pizza for the trip and purchased a Vodafine sim card for the refurbed Blackberry 7290 I bought for my travels. This setup proved to be a handy investment.

I picked up my rental, a ford Focus wagon, at the airport Budget and made my way to Cesana Pariol. I made a couple of wrong turns, but managed to arrive at the track just in time for the six thirty team captains meeting.

I was expecting to see French coach Pillipe Cavoret because an arrangement had been made by the USBSF to have him provide me with coaching. I was informed he would arrive the next day. The jury for the race was sitting at the front of the room, and so I submitted my FIBT license for the competition. They drew nations for training order, and the US came up tenth of thirteen.

After the draw, I drove up to the start of the track to have a look. It was lit up in the dark like a glowing worm crawling up the hillside. This track is amazingly well protected from the elements as it is almost completely covered with shades. Good for track conditions, but not very conducive to spectating.

Upon reaching the start, I decided to continute down the road on the other side of the track. I passed four other athletes walking the road as I approached turn three. The road going down the back side of the track was reasonably plowed, but I discovered that it was also incredibly slick. By the time I reached turn three of the track, the only thing up for decision was whether I would miss the big wooden pole at the bottom of the hill, or sink the car into a snow bank. The ABS system was going nuts as I picked up speed towards the turn in the road adjacent to turn four of the track. Luckily, I was able to redirect the car enough to miss the pole and run it into a forgiving snow field. I got out of the car, and soon the four winesses arrived on the scene.

Stevie Brügger, Pierre-Henri Vulliens, Erik Geerts, and Michaela Glasser got a good show, and they tried to help free the car. The snow was too much, and so we continued down the track. They gave me a ride to the track ops building where I went to find some help. Here I met Evo, who runs the track. He was a bobsledder in the Calgary Olympics, and is easily recognizable by the trademark cowboy hat he wears. I got Erik's number just in case, and then Evo and I took his Quattro back to my car. He thought our best bet was to try towing it out the next day, so we trasnfered all of my gear into his car and proceeded to my hotel. The girl at the desk, Gaia, didn't realize that I had made a reservation, but it all worked out. Luckily the German team was staying there, and so I asked their coach, Frank, for a ride in the morning. He was very gracious and said it wouldn't be a problem. Dinner had alrady finished by the time I arrived, but they set me up with a very welcome dinner anyway. What a night. I was so ready to sleep, but still had to assemble my sled and review track notes/video for the 9am sliding session. On top of staying up late, I just couldn't sleep well from jetlag and some anxiety about not waking up in time for my ride in the morning. I still felt unprepared for my first day of ice.