Bonjur,
Yes I am in France right now how did you guess, Belle Plange, France to be precise. It’s pretty exciting since France has been of the Race Circuit for a while, and none the current members of Team USA have ever slid here well besides our coaches. It should be an exciting time. We are staying at the Ski Resort La Caralina, located in the French Alps! Yeah no big deal lol
Europa Cup races
I hope you do not mind but I have to back track for a minute. This year before the Official start of the World Cup Season we decided to Two Europa Cup Races as we prepared for the Season. The Europa Cup tour is a lower ranked tour but there is still a ton of competition on that level, similar to Division 1 and Division 1AA or whatever it is nowadays In a Europa Cup Race you can have anywhere from 45-60 2-Man sleds in a race while World Cup will have about 27-32 2-Man Sleds in a race. The race week is also very different; on world cup we have one 2-Man race and one 4-Man race a week that are held on Saturday and Sunday. On Europa Cup you have two 2-Man Races and two 4-Man Races in a week; we were racing Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, along with our normal sprint and weight lifting routine. Needless to say it was a tiring couple of weeks. We flew in to the Munich, Germany Airport picked up our rental cars (Shout-Out to BMW for outfitting the USA team with 6 BMW X5’s while on tour!!) and rental Vans that we transport out bobsleds in as we travel from venue to venue.
The first stop on our Europa Cup Tour was Igls, Austria which is two-hours away from the airport; while in Austria we stayed at the Sportshotel. It’s a massive hotel complete with the always needed Hot Tub, Cold Tub, Sauna, Steam Room, and pool or simply put a Spa. The Spar area is really nice but the only catch is…….is that it’s a nude area!! Yeah that’s a whole other story now back to bobsled. Unlike in Team Trials our crew was finally able to race in its proper positions, I pushed from the left, Fogt from the brakes and JQ from the Right, but we still needed repetition as a crew and these Europa Cup races would provide that. The race two 2-man races had 49 sleds in it. On the first day Napier and Fogt finished 7th (Thursday), in the second day of racing Napier and I finished 10th (Friday). The first day of 4-man we finished 12th, on the second day of 4-man we finished 9th. A top ten finish was good but we always want top 6 if we don’t win. In both of the-man races we dropped between 5 and 7 hundredths between our first and second pushes!! It was good that we went faster on the pushes but we need to be more consistent and not leave so much time at the block on the first push. It basically comes down to timing and the crew being on the same page, but the more reps we have together the better our timing on the hit and our load will get resulting in a faster start time.
Directly after the 4-man race we went back to the hotel, showered, packed bags and the trucks then hit the road for a two and a half hour drive to Konigssee, Germany; the next stop on the Europa Cup tour. In Konigssee we usually stay at the hotel Fischer during the World Cup but they were booked, so we stayed at a hotel that was closer to the track called Hotel Brunneck. I have to interject for a moment: since we have been traveling over to Europe every hotel we stayed at served these five course meals that took a good two hours till completion. We accepted it and figured it was tradition and when in Rome blah blah! OUR THEORY WAS PROVEN WRONG AT THE HOTEL BRUNNECK!!! It was a staff of three people in the kitchen (2 cooks and a waitress) and they served all five courses in a good thirty-five minutes. This German lady was on it, running out salad, soup, drinks, bread before we thought about asking and the main meal came out just as quick! Meanwhile when we were in Austria they have a staff about ten preparing our meals, taking two hours to finish. Needless to say we loved the food and service at Hotel Brunneck added to the fact it was five minutes closer to the track it was definitely a good spot to be at.
The track in Konigssee is about ten minutes away from Berchtesgaden, Germany; it is also home to Hitler’s Crow’s nest and is a stone’s throw away from the Austrian Border. It’s a beautiful area, but you will be able to see it in my picture album. The races in Konigssee, Germany went about the same as they did in Igls. I did not race 2-man this week instead the duty feel on my teammate JQ and Fogt. JQ and Napes finished 13th in the first 2-man Race, then Fogt and Napes finished 5th in the second 2-Man race. We only had one 4-man race where we finished in 13th place just .05 out of the top ten. Our timing was a bit off and one of the guys got hung up on the load which did not help; It was a race we definitely felt we should have finished higher in but that is why we race and practice you never know what’s going to happen.
World Cup Races
Ironically enough he start of the World Cup Season began in Igls, Austria; and yes you guessed it after the 4-Man Race we packed up, showered, and hit the road another two and a half hours back to Austria and two hour dinners! Lol However this time when we got to Austria our Team Manager Lenny spoke with the staff, informing them that they need to be quicker in their meal service for us since we don’t have time to sit around for hours enjoying the ambiance. Lol We were all glad he talked to them because it allowed us to come in and just have the main course then leave or they set it up buffet style saving us a ton of time. That’s Right AMERICA!!! Lol
I may have mentioned this before but whenever we change the normal operations of something in Europe, Drive down a road we may or may not supposed to be on, pull a U turn in the wrong place or do something like the Honey Badger would do we SCREAM OUT AMERICA (Movie: The Other Guys) and it Makes it all OK!! Lol Oh and Completely Legal!! It’s a rule written on the back of your passport, don’t bother looking trust me it’s there!
Going into the World Cup week I won a race-off against one of my teammates and the right to race the 2-Man race that week. The days of training leading up to the race went well we were pushing fine in 2-man and in 4-man; we all were feeling pretty excited going into our first World Cup Event of the year. I wish I could sugar coat it but I’m not good at that, the 2-man race was a bad day the start was not what we wanted and we ended up in 18th place. I went back and looked at the film with my coaches to see how to improve and the film looked pretty good but we did see that my ground contact could have been longer. Since looking at the film I have been correcting that issue in my pushing and sprint work out making sure that will not happen again. Because in my sport you are only as good as your last push, if you give people a reason to doubt your ability it will snowball into a ton “is he really that good” theories no matter what you have done in the past. My sport is measured in hundredths of a second and if they are not fast then one race can be your last race. It’s a harsh reality but sometimes one mistake is all you get if that depending on the year. Please do not confuse my tone it is one of passion and determination knowing that my next race will be a thousand times better than my last.
Thankfully the 4-man race went a bit better, we were 12th off in the starting order and after the first heat we were sitting in a tie for 10th position. The first heat we pushed a 5.16, we were pissed because we knew we had a lot more in us than that. Going into the second heat we got our mind right! Emotions started to fly, words were said, and our blood was pumping a million miles per second!! My eyes were blood shot red and beads of sweat and adrenalin were pouring down mine, JQ, and Fogt’s face we were ready to blast this sled of the hill! We step to the line each of us grabbing the sled in our designation position. I call out “GOOD” to Fogt letting him know me and JQ are ready, Fogt screams out “BACKSET”!! Napier Yells “FRONTSET READY” and we all hit the sled with more power and speed then in the first heat! We can feel it as we are pushing down the hill and the load was a lot smoother and quicker than before. The trip down the hill felt good! When we got down to the bottom we were told that we pushed 5.11 dropping .05 of our start but the Canadian before us had a smoking r had a hell of a run and they pushed 5.10 beating us to the bottom by .02 at the bottom and a Netherland sled had pushed a 5.07 beating us to the bottom by .01 landing us in 12 position by .03. If we would have pushed at least 5.11 both heats we would have been in the top 10 to 8 sleds. Anyway the race was over and all we could do is take what we learned and apply it to the next race in Laplange, France which by the way was a 9 hour drive away!! Once again we headed back to the hotel showered, ate a quick lunch, packed the trucks and were off to France for World Cup race #2.
The drive to France actually went by pretty fast but at the team meeting that night the Coaches had a little surprise that I will tell you about in the next e-mail. Yeah I’m a little stinker I know.
God Bless
Jesse
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