Behind the Scenes at JKOTM
Feb 10 2008 / Squaw Valley, CA
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(Our Inside Man at 'cross events is working at the Jeep King Of The Mountain contest at Squaw Valley as a triple threat: coach, team manger and ski tech, or 'serviceman'. The gear techs for both ski and boarder cross have become essential players on the ad hoc 'cross tour. Racers can't do good without perfectly tuned and waxed gear. Jeffrey Sadis, a former alpine World Cup tech, has a growing group of athlete fans who hire him to do the job for them.)
Update - Friday, February 8, 2008
Today was qualifying for the skiccross, and my guys did fairly well. Cody Smith was 11th and I had two other Frenchmen qualify in the top 20. A couple of my guys didn't make it, they made some small mistakes. Otherwise they skied well. It was a short, very flat course, not up to the standards of the professional skiers.
There's a lot of criticism. There's been some protests, but the organizers don't care.
They also are not very well organized. They still don't have the results in and it's 7:00. They didn't even have a scoreboard at the bottom, so no one knows how anyone did. We've kind of all guestimated how everyone did.
Kind of disapointing for the professional skiers to see it so badly run.
Everyone skied really well -- there were no major crashes. Crish, the Solomon tech that I share a ski room with, he is talking dirty to the skis he is working on. Maybe they like it, because the French guys whose skis they are did really well today. Tomorrow's the race. Everybody's looking forard to it, because no matter what the course is like, they always look forward to it. A competitor is a competitor.
Update - Thursday, February 7, 2008
Steph Peters got injured on the first big jump on the course, and tore her ACL. The course is pretty lame, pretty flat, most of the athletes are not happy about it. Training was cut short today because organizers were not totally prepared to deal with the weather. Snow is just dumping.
I'm in the ski room, preparing skis right now. We're qualifying tomorrow (skicross), and we have to be prepared to deal with a very, very flat course. It's very much going to be a wax race. (Breaks out into laughter)
Chris Taylor from Team Solomon from the factory team from Solomon, is right now trying to steal my wax, and the funny thing is, I should be stealing his, he's got the fastest wax right now. He's lying to me about what it is, and when I asked again, he just gave me the finger, but he was smiling when he did, it's really all fun and games.
Saw Daron and Casey skiing today, I don't think Daron is terribly psyched about the course. Casey is just trying to take care of his shoulder.
I've got to go and take care of Steph right now, I'm going to the hospital to pick her up. She's really disappointed.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Right now, I'm in Squaw Valley in the service room in Squaw Village. They've got good heating here, the building used to be a restaurant, but now they've let us use it as a ski room. I'll be sharing it with one other service man and a couple of random Euros.
A lot of the skiers who were at the X Games and at the Deer Valley World Cup are here. My athletes so far are Steph Peters, Cody Smith, Tanner Bardin, Zedneck Sasar, Bitche Rudigouz, plus two French guys I'm helping out.
It's been totally dumping here, but right now it's a bluebird day. But it's previously dumped so much snow, they've had problems building the course. They're behind by about 24 hours. Still, the snowboarders get inspection this afternoon, and they will start training tomorrow. The skiers start inspection tomorrow, so it's a free day for them today. Right now my athletes are all out powder skiing, I will be joining them shortly.
The contest will be televised on CBS next weekend, right before basketball starts. It will be an hour long show. Skicross quals are Friday, the race is Saturday. Snowboarder qual is Thursday, they race Friday.
The course here will be a little more open than Deer Valley, a little faster and certainly bigger air. Though they are having problems with the snow, so there's a chance they may move the start down a little bit and shorten the course, just because there's so much snow.
There's 50 men trying for 32 spots, and 25 women trying for 16 spots. Same ones who follow the circuit from X Games to DV. There will be quite a lot of spectators from SF and Tahoe and Reno coming up. A lot will be coming for the concerts. Among the bands performing are Rock Kills Kid, The Roots, Devil Makes Three, D.J. Logic, Crystal Method, Bedouin Sound Clash and more.
I have so many athletes, it will be a sh*tload of work, unbelievable. I also have to take care of registration, since I'm coaching and managing them too. I'm actually taking one of my athletes to register right now before we get out on the hill.
My guys (and girls) are ready to race. I've got some younger athletes and some who are experienced as well, and I'm confident that on any given day, any of these racers can be on the podium.
As far as I know, both Daron Rahlves and Casey Puckett will be here. Casey is nursing a sore shoulder. He was watching the moguls, he fell while he was watching, just standing around. Those things happen.
Thanks to Wina Sturgeon at AdventureSportsWeekly.com for contributing to this article.