Jit's Journal: U.S. men roll at NorAm Finals

Currently, as I write this, I am sitting in Denver International Airport en route to U.S. nationals in Alaska. For the last two weeks, I have been in Canada at the NorAm finals and Canadian nationals.
    In my last journal, I discussed how I had some unfinished business to take care of as I approached the end of the season. That unfinished business was mainly winning the NorAm GS title. It wasn’t an easy process by any means, but after some tough moments when I had to step up and take charge, I was finally able to clinch the title in Panorama at NorAm Finals. There were a few moments throughout the season when I wasn’t so sure I was going to get it together enough to pull it off, but I kept the faith and things really came together.
    NorAm Finals started out with a bang, as I did exactly what I planned during my break before arriving in Canada — clinch the title on the first day and get it out of the way. The race was one of my better performances of the year and I felt like I was completely on autopilot, which is a good thing. Usually when everything comes together in your skiing, you ski more efficiently and faster; hence the autopilot analogy. I won the race by a large margin and was able to celebrate not only the win, and the title, but the World Cup spot I had earned for next year.
CURRENTLY, AS I WRITE THIS, I am sitting in Denver International Airport en route to U.S. nationals in Alaska. For the last two weeks, I have been in Canada at the NorAm finals and Canadian nationals.
    In my last journal, I discussed how I had some unfinished business to take care of as I approached the end of the season. That unfinished business was mainly winning the NorAm GS title. It wasn’t an easy process by any means, but after some tough moments when I had to step up and take charge, I was finally able to clinch the title in Panorama at NorAm Finals. There were a few moments throughout the season when I wasn’t so sure I was going to get it together enough to pull it off, but I kept the faith and things really came together.
    NorAm Finals started out with a bang, as I did exactly what I planned during my break before arriving in Canada — clinch the title on the first day and get it out of the way. The race was one of my better performances of the year and I felt like I was completely on autopilot, which is a good thing. Usually when everything comes together in your skiing, you ski more efficiently and faster; hence the autopilot analogy. I won the race by a large margin and was able to celebrate not only the win, and the title, but the World Cup spot I had earned for next year.
    The next three days turned out to be a tough time for me. I slid onto my side in the opening run of GS the next day and couldn’t find the fire in the second run to pull the day together. I ended up fourth and that would be the last time I would make it to the finish in Panorama. The final two slaloms went bad for me. I crashed out on the first day after getting confused in a hairpin and then trying to save that mistake. On the final day, I slid out on the second run in some bad snow and that was that.
    On a more positive note, Cody Marshall clinched the slalom title for the men and Tim Kelley was the runner-up in the title race after smoking the field in final slalom race to clinch the win. This is a fantastic feat and gives the U.S. Ski Team two more spots in slalom on the World Cup tour next year. Congrats to both guys for fantastic skiing. All in all, the U.S. boys brought home eight of the 10 World Cup spots for next year up for grabs on the NorAm tour. Great job guys!
    After Finals was over, some of us stayed in Canada to go to Canadian nationals in Whistler and get some experience on the Olympic DH track. I was expecting a week of speed skiing, which would have been refreshing for me since I haven’t done any all year, and instead I ended up skiing a slalom, GS and a super G. The weather was awful and the snow conditions were not good by any stretch of the imagination. In the GS, it was raining so hard at one point that it felt like someone was just spraying me with a hose as I skied down the course. Fog plagued almost every day except the second run of slalom, and by the time we drove to Vancouver to fly to Alaska, we were all sick of Whistler. We got some positive experience points on the hill, however, and some hardware to boot. Warner Nickerson skied himself into third in the slalom, Erik Fisher was third in the super G, and I ended up third in the GS.
    Now we are all on our way to our nationals in Alaska and I hope we can turn those thirds into firsts. Stay tuned!

— Jit

Thanks to all my sponsors for their support:
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