Ski Racing - January 25, 2010

OUT OF THE GATE

WAXROOM

Several racers on the U.S. women’s team spent the holidays in their new home-away-from-home in Zell am See, Austria, where the entire town included the athletes into its annual traditional celebration involving ugly monsters.

Local folklore dictates that a horned creature called Krampus goes around beating up children for good luck in the holiday season. We checked Wikipedia (again) and it’s legit (well, according to Wikipedia) — Krampus is allegedly something like Santa Claus’s evil double. The Krampus sometimes carries a basket with him to take away children who have been naughty and “dumps them into the pits of hell.” Nice.

During the celebration in Zell Am See, the Krampus doppelgangers went around “beating up” the U.S. girls, even making Lindsey Vonn pick up some sort of egg that was apparently part of the story.

It all seemed like excit-
ing, cultural fun — except
that Stacey Cook said the
pushing and shoving got
a little rough and one of
the Krampus characters
started boxing with her
and smeared charcoal all
over her team jacket in the
name of “good luck.”
“This guy was like hitting
me in the face,” Cook said. “Then, they hatched an
egg and made Lindsey pick up the hatched egg with
paper towels. It was so disgusting.”
And for a moment, Cook wondered if the whole
ritual wasn’t some sort of assassination plan cooked
up by the Austrian team.

“They did a salute — like a gun firing — and the mayor of Zell am See was explaining everything as they went through it,” said Cook. “And I was like, ‘are you sure they’re not going to shoot us? Like, take out the competition?’ The Austrians set up this whole sweet celebration and then they’re like [gun fire noise], POW!”

Krampus, meet Kurent

Olympic silver medalist Shannon Bahrke had a little extra inspiration in her pocket (literally) as she claimed a third-place finish on the first day of competition at the Visa Freestyle International in Deer Valley. “They gave us this little bracelet that says ‘Believe,’” said Bahrke showing reporters her red, white and blue good luck charm. “I do believe that I am good enough and I want to walk in the Opening Ceremonies and be a part of it.” Lucky charm

Gold: To the Deer Valley pressroom cuisine. Delish! (Yes, we also awarded a medal to media food in the last issue. Reporters are a hungry bunch.)

Silver: To the lining of the clouds bringing rain to the Vancouver area — hoping that’ll turn to snow.

Bronze: To Olympic bronze medalist Toby Dawson for his multitasking; the freestyle star is now a golf pro and an author, too.

Wooden: To the Austrian downhill team, which has not yet scored a World Cup win. The last time that happened this late in the season was 1988, and they were shut out of Olympic medals in the downhill.

MEDALSPLAZA

GEPA (MILLER); SHAUNA FARNELL (KRAMPUS, MANCUSO); JULIE SHIPMAN (BAHRKE)

Just Dance

Julia Mancuso sometimes likes to use her time in the finish area after a race to bust out her dance moves, especially if Lady GaGa is on the loudspeaker. (Never mind that Alice McKennis is trying to stretch.) And the music was good in Haus im Ennstal. You just couldn’t control your dancin’ feet. When Leanne Smith finished and was less than thrilled with her results, Mancuso and Chemmy Alcott were relentless with their dance moves and finally got a smile out of her with their “interactive” routine.

Bode Miller was enjoying himself after winning the
opening race of the 80th Lauberhorn at Wengen,
Switzerland. After he explained he had used the same
boots for both the downhill and slalom legs of the com-
bined a reporter asked if they were downhill boots or
slalom boots. “Well, I used them in the downhill first so
they were downhill boots,” said Miller. “But right now,
since I just used them in the slalom, they’re slalom
boots, so I guess I’ll be using my slalom boots in the
downhill tomorrow.”
Bode’s Boots Are
Made for Talking

The top three finishers at the famed Lauberhorn World Cup alpine races in Wengen, Switzerland, traditionally get a helicopter ride to the press conference. Ride along with Bode Miller as he comes off his win of the 2010 super combined. Über-exclusive heli-skiing!