Hello from Zermatt!

After almost two months off skis it was about time we get back to training! Getting back on skis and in the boots was not all that easy, I’ve struggled with some painful shins the first couple of days, and I even managed to get sick and spend 2 days in bed. I guess my body was not all that happy to leave the heat of the beach and needed a few days to start functioning properly on over 3000m. Other than that, we had some amazing weather and in order to catch as many runs on good, hard snow in the morning…the alarm goes off at 5.30.

Not even the early wake up prevented us from watching the final of the WC in South Africa, watching Spain win was definitely worth missing a couple of hours of sleep. I was really happy to see Spain take that Cup home. I was far from the only Spain fan in the team, my teammate Natko decided he was not going shave his beard as long as Spain is in the game, so their making it all the way to the finals gave him a month of facial hair. That’s what I’d call a real fan! J

We have a couple more days of training here in Zermatt, before heading home for some more dryland and some last days at the beach. Summer for me ends mid-August when I’m headed to Argentina for a month.

I wish you all a good summer and lots of fun!

Seems like all my friends are doing these days is dealing with some last exams at their universities and planning their summers. The mostly often asked question these days seems to be “What are you going to do this summer?”. Well, I kind of already had my summer. After wrapping up my season in the beginning of May, I dedicated a couple of weeks to school, cleared up all the exams I wasn’t able to take care during the season and planned my two weeks of vacation. It has been my wish for many years now to go for a surfing trip, and since I didn’t have enough time to fly out to the super popular Bali, Tiitu and I decided to go to Fuerteventura for a week of surfing and fun. It has been an amazing experience; we managed to learn something, relax, have lots of fun and to meet a bunch of great people! For as sad as I was leaving after only a week, I was excited to the next part of my vacation. With a bunch of friends we sailed the Croatian coast and island, and we were lucky enough to choose a beautiful week to do so. Weather has been a little bit crazy around here lately, but somehow we managed to get the sunniest and most beautiful week one can wish for. Sailing definitely is definitely something special, being on a boat most of the time, tanning in the breeze of the sailing boat is one of the most relaxing experiences one can have. I felt like I was really able to recharge my batteries in those two week, they happened to be the perfect combination of active and passive vacation for me and after getting back on solid grounds, I was ready to get back to work and hit the gym. 

It hasn’t been long since it became official, but after many years of great cooperation, it was time for me to leave the well-known safety of the Atomic team and embrace some new challenges. From season 2010/11 I will be a proud member of team Elan!! I am very excited about this change and am hopeful that this new challenge will only bring positive things into my career. I just had my first photoshoot with them a couple of days ago, and I can say that if the atmosphere through the season is going to be as the one on the set…I’ll be expecting a great year!

Enjoy your summer, and I wish you all a perfect tan! 

Hello everyone!

It has been a really long tome since my last update but I somehow feel it’s about time I sum up the season. It has been a really long and struggling year for me, and therefore I rarely felt like there was something meaningful to share with you guys.

I believe it’s much more fun reading about great accomplishments than about how much effort was put into a season that didn’t turn out to be as good as I hoped. But that’s part of the sport as well, and as an athlete you have no choice but learn from your mistakes, keep working hard and eventually things have to get back in place!

I finished the season as 13^th in the slalom standings, and I was definitely hoping for more. I had some god runs and races this winter, but also managed to have some that turned out to be really disappointing. Realizing I was not going to have one of my best season, I am still rather happy that I managed to keep myself within the top 15 and that way I’ll still have a good start position for next season.

The World Cup finals didn’t mean the end of the season for me, I’ll keep skiing on and off until the 5^th of May and than will finally treat myself with a much deserved vacation. I’m craving some sun and heat really badly!

Wish you all a beautiful spring,

Ana

Sitting in my living room watching the Olympics on TV and trying to think if I’ve forgot to pack something. Since we are the last ones from the team flying towards Whistler, I really hope not. It’s been an exciting last couple of weeks, I worked hard and now I hope I’m ready for this new challenge. I was rather disappointed that once again I was not able to attend the opening ceremony and get some of that Olympic spirit, but staying in Europe training was much more important. Well’ hopefully I get to see the one in Sochi! So, now I’m really looking forward to getting to Whistler and as much of the spirit as I can before we start racing. I am aware that this is a one in four years chance and that no matter how hard I try to convince myself that the only thing that matters is to give it my best shot and hope it turns out right, I know that at the Games the only results that count are those that get you a nice and shiny medal around your neck! With that in mind… I am ready to go and give it a shot! See you all there!

After a disappointing race in Maribor, I decided it was time for a break.  There is a month before the biggest event of the year, the Games in Vancouver, and I need to get some things sorted out by than. I’ve been home since Sunday and have been hitting the gym, the mountain and the beach for dryland training twice a day. I get the chance to be home so rarely that I sometimes forget how beautiful it can be and what great opportunities for training my town and it’s surrounding has to offer. The other day I climbed up the hill where I used to ski when I was a kid and witnessed one of the most beautiful sunsets ever. What makes it so special is that from the slope you get to see the coastline, the islands and even the boats fishing in front of the city! It made me feel like the climb was totally worth the effort. It’s sad that we don’t get the chance to train up there more often, would be pretty cool to be distracted by that amazing view that combines snow and sea while speeding down a course!

I’m taking this weekend off and heading for a mini vacation, it will be good to take my mind off everything for two days so when I get back to training I’ll be full of enthusiasm and energy!

Till than..

Ana

It has been an interesting start of the year. I got to race on the 3rd in zagreb and even though everyone was a bit worried about how the snow was gonna hold but with a little help from a cold night and a lot of work from the guys on the slopes we had great conditions!

I am rally proud of how that race turns out every year and although I was wishing for a finis in the top 10 I am rather happy with my 11th place.

I got to hang around Zagreb waiting for the mens race and it was cool to be part of such a big event without the pressure of the result. I also got to for-run the mens race with a camera on my helmet. That was really fun and definitely a much different experience than when I'm racing for real. After being done with my "job" i watched both runs from the finish area and it reminded me how fun ski racing actually is! When it's your race day you don't get to enjoy the whole show as much as when you are just a relaxed spectator. The atmosphere was great and I believe every guy racing down the course got the feeling that the whole crowd is supporting him from the first gate to the last! Altogether I had a great time and so did my team mates, as you can see in the picture.

After two days of not all that great training on the race slope (snow, fog, rain) I am packing for Flachau. It's our first and only night race this year and I can't wait for it!

See you there!

Ana

Hello!

It's nice to be here again! I hope you all had a great time over your Christmas breaks and are getting ready for some great party in order to welcome 2010!

So, let me tell you about my past week... I was able to spend Christmas at home this year, which was really nice. We had a fun get-together with some family and friends on Christmas Eve and a traditional lunch right before we left for Innerkrems again on the 25th. I'm really pleased with Santa this year, he left many useful things under my tree this year...so among other things I got a vacuum cleaner (he must have heard me complaining how I never have time to go buy one and keep borrowing it from my parents and the neighbors), some kitchenware (never though one needs that much stuff to make a new kitchen functional), a coffee machine (what's better than having only to push a button to get coffee when you wake up) and some other similar stuff. Altogether I couldn't be happier!!

For the past eight years I've always been racing on my birthday. This year we had a GS race in Lienz on the 28th followed by the slalom on the 29th. Although I wish there was something positive worth mentioning about my race, there isn't. My GS is not even close to where I would want it to be and it didn't take much for the focus of the day to take a totally unexpected turn. There is a little turny road that goes from the bottom of the hill up to the start of the GS course and the plan was that my coach and my mom would drive up to the start by car. Lucky enough, mom decided it was to early for her and stayed at the hotel while Zoran drove up. Somewhere half the way up he realized the road was rather slippery and decided to put on the snow chains. He got to a point where it seems a river crossing the street froze and made it impossible for him to go back or forth. It was so icy the chains didn't have any grip anymore and the car switched itself of the automatic parking brake activated. He said there was a couple of seconds before he realized things were going really really bad, even with the break on the cart started sliding backwards and he was left with no choice than to open the door and jump out of the moving car. Within seconds the car caught up speed and rolled down the side of the road for some 50m, stopping upside down only when crashing into a tree. It was 7.50 in the morning when he called my skiman Lazo saying: "I'm not sure if I'm still dreaming, but I think I just jumped out of a car that rolled down the side of the road"! He wasn't dreaming... The car got completely destroyed and I can't even think what might have happened if he didn't manage to jump out, or if there had been someone sitting on the passengers seat. Now we all laugh about it because it all ended up well but I'm sure it was not funny at all while it was happening. 

We've had that car for 3 seasons, drove 140000km in it...and beside a few scratches never had any kind of accident in it. I somehow think that if that's the worse that will ever happen, I'm not complaining. The best birthday present I got in many years is the fact that no one got hurt in the accident, and for the car- it served us well, as far I'm concerned it might rest in peace.

I wish you all a happy New Year and want to remind you to tune in to watch the races in Zagreb on the 3rd and 6th of January!

These days everyone keeps asking me how it feels now that the season is finally over. And I never know what to answer. The problem is that, even though the World Cup past of the season is over, the real season doesn't really ever end. Or at least not in the way most people think it ends. So, let me try to explain it.

I skied my last World Cup race at the finals in Are, but I'm still far from done with skiing for this season. After racing almost exclusively slalom during the winter, I decided it was time to focus on some speed races for a change. We decided that the best option would be to go to the Swiss nationals in St.Moritz, since there is a chance that I might someday want to start a WC race there.

I have almost no training at all in super-G or downhill so I was really skeptical about what it will look like to put on the big skis. I really shouldn't have worried since it turned out to be one of the best and most relaxing weeks this year. It's so much different to ski when no one has any expectations of how things should go, how many points you are supposed to make, how many seconds can you be behind and the usual things that you think about when racing events that you actually train for!

Anyway, St. Moritz proved to be a week of almost perfect weather, beautiful slopes and it actually managed to boost up my confidence about being able to ski other events beside slalom. Doing my first proper downhill race got me really excited and I was looking forward to doing some more ones before taking a summer break. Unfortunately, the last day in Switzerland I managed to get sick and was forced to stay home for a week in order to get better and be able to race the only race planned for the Croatian nationals, a slalom on my home slope on Platak.

Even though Platak is a little mountain 20 km from my home, I haven't skied there in many years and I was curious to see what that is going to be like. It turned out to be the weirdest race I have ever done!! Out of the 19 girls who were on the start list, only 4 of us were able to finish the race. Due to some warm weather, conditions were far from perfect in the first run, and as the fog came it made things only worse! Well, I still managed to win the national title and have a good laugh on the way down since it was so foggy that I had a hard time finding the next gate in the slalom course!

Now I'm back in Austria for a few days training and hopefully some races if the crazy weather allows it! On and off I still have a month and a half of skiing ahead of me before I can say that I'm done... The only thing I'm hoping is some good conditions and some sunny days in this next month because otherwise my mind tends to wonder on vacation even before it's time to go!

P.S. I would like to thank Mitch Gunn for the beautiful action pictures he provided during the season, and in case you would like to check out some more have a look at www.sportsphotographers.eu

I'm assuming it was about time I made an update. I planned to do it sooner, but somehow nothing that happened this past month seemed worth writing about.
After a good 4th place in Garmisch, I was really looking forward to the races in Val d'Isere but instead of being able to fully concentrate on the slalom, two days before the race, in the GS warm-up I hit a bump and managed to hurt my knee.

Although I was lucky enough not to hurt it too seriously, it created enough trouble to take the focus off the race and put it onto being able to start in the first place. Well, I guess things could have gone even worse since in the end I managed to start and finish 7th.
It's not the result I was wishing for, but since I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to start I guess I shouldn't be complaining. My friend Veronika Zuzulova hit the same bump, the same run as I did and had to have knee surgery and skip the rest of the season. That's bad luck!

Otherwise, this past month had me moving around Europe quite a bit. I spent a lot of time in the car and stopped hardly anywhere for more than a few days. For as much as I love traveling, I'm not a fan of packing. Skiing makes me stay on the road for over 200 days a year, and consequently I pretty much live out of my bags. It's a constant packing and unpacking, and as you might assume skiing requires a lot of gear.

The "standard" amount of stuff I have with me are two rather big travel bags, a big backpack and a smaller one for my computer. Not to mention the rest of the equipment that is taken care of by my team. Altogether, the amount of stuff for the four of us (I always travel with my coach Zoran, service man Lazo, and the woman's team physio Mario) fills a van and a big car! I sometimes wish I had a magic stick or something that would do all the packing and carrying for us!

I came to envy sports where all you need is a pair of shorts, t-shirt and sneakers...or a swimsuit and flip flops! But well, no one forced me to choose a sport where you can't leave for training without at least 15 kg of gear on your shoulders. So I guess my only option is to stop complaining and enjoy all the upsides of what all that gear allows me to do!

Right now I'm in Are for the World Cup finals and am hoping that at least for this last race, everything is going to run smoothly and I'll be able to close the season with a satisfying result. It would mean a lot in order to get the right motivation for the training I'll do over summer. We'll se how that goes; I know just one thing... I'll give it my best shot!

P.S. Keep up the cheering!

I said I was going to try not to let an other month go by before posting a new entry, and I'm sorry there went almost two... Days just seem to fly by without me even noticing it when the season is on.

I'm in Cortina at the moment and the scenery around here is just amazing! The Dolomites are extremely beautiful now that they are covered with over four meters of snow! It's in days like this that I feel extremely lucky to be able to enjoy it all as part of my job.

Although most of the time I love what I'm doing, right now while watching on TV the downhill race in Kitzbuhel, I can't help myself but think of how wrong the direction in which the sport is headed seems to be sometimes.

Everything just seems to be getting way too extreme in my opinion, and for as much as I understand that it has always been and always will be a dangerous sport, there should be ways of protecting the athletes more. There have been just so many athletes getting hurt this season and I refuse to believe it has always and only been their own fault.

As mentioned Marie in her last post, races seem to be getting longer, harder, faster and held in all kind of weather condition were despite the questionable fairness of the races, chances of getting hurt are rather big and when it happens, it seems that they just "swipe off" the injured one, fix the nets and gates and the show goes on.

Kitzbuhel has always been an amazing race but today to me it just doesn't look fun anymore. Guys seems to be on the edge on almost every turn and/or jump and as proven by what happened to Albrecht in training, any mistake, even minor can lead to major crashes and life threatening injuries.

It just makes me wonder if it is really necessary to make skiers go at up to 140 km/h with very little protection, with skiing materials only getting faster every year, where is the limit to it all? To me that just isn't what sport is supposed to be about anymore. I really wish Daniel a full and fast recovery and hope that his crash could be a lesson of what should never be happening again...

Let's hope for the best,

It's been over a month since my last entry, but somehow time seems to simply fly by now that the season has started!
So, since you must be wondering what all I have been so busy with, let's rewind at least a little bit...

I wrote about how excited I was about the slalom season starting in Levi. I've always brought home good memories from there and I was surely hoping for a good result to start with. Since the weather wasn't all that good on Mölltaler, where we planned to spend our last days of training before Levi, we decided to head up north earlier than what was first planned.
We were greeted by the Finnish team which I'd want to thank for treating us as almost their members for the few days of training prior to the race. Despise the not so great conditions of the training slope, we were really able to get some work done so, thank you guys!

The feeling before the race was pretty good, and I simply couldn't wait to start! Unfortunately, mistakes in slalom are not all that unusual, and the one that I made some ten gates before the finish line was bad enough not to allow me to make it into the 2nd run. I was certainly disappointed but as long as my skiing felt good, there was no reason to stress about it to much.

We didn't go home from Levi, we spent the night after the race in Helsinki where I was able to catch up with a friend of mine and have a nice evening before heading overseas. One of the things I learned to enjoy the most when traveling a lot is that I eventually manage to see, even if just for a couple of hours, friends from around the world who I would hardly ever get to see otherwise.

I really enjoy it when the World Cup moves to the States! This has been my sixth trip to Colorado and I still gat amazed by how big everything is there! Although I tend to have trouble adjusting to the American snow and my asthma is prone to give me trouble when training at such high altitude (Loveland is at 3200 m and above) I always enjoy being there.
The apartments where we always stay are big and cozy and I seem to never have enough of the TV! After a long day at the slopes, one of my favorite things to do is relax on the couch and watch whatever is on. If wasn't for the commercial breaks I would hardly ever get up from in front of it! Well I eventually have to in order to train, eat and sleep... but sometimes it's not all that easy! Just kidding, of course...or maybe not... ;)

I'll leave you after telling you this little weakness of mine and with the promise of not letting another month go by before you hear from me again!

Enjoy the recent snowfalls and ski some powder for me too!

The giant slalom race in Sölden is the first race of the World Cup season and I think that's what makes it somehow special for all of us. It's the first chance to show off how good you worked over the summer and see where you stand among the other athletes.

I have a kind of love/hate relationship with that race. Back in 2002, at the age of 15 I got the opportunity to ski my first World Cup race there, and without anyone really expecting it I qualified for the 2nd run and finished 23rd.

Even though I've had better results since than, because of the surprise and of how new it all was to me, it's still one of the sweetest memories I have from the white circuit. Unfortunately, since than things haven't gone all that great for me in Sölden. Over the years I somehow became more a slalom than a giant slalom skier, resulting with a big lack of confidence when it comes to showing off at the races what I'm capable of in training. As you might guess, insecurity doesn't really help you on the steep and icy Rettenbach slope. I thought I came to the race prepared as I haven't been in a long time, and I disappointed myself greatly when after a mistake on the first pitch I "panicked" and skied badly the rest of the course.

Unfortunately, disappointments are also part of the job but I guess as long as you learn something from them there is no reason to beat yourself about it for too long.

Anyway, the "real" season for me starts with the slalom race in Levi (Finland) and I am really looking forward to it. Let's all hope for some snow in the next couple of days, it's no fun at all when races get cancelled because of lack of snow as it happened there last year!

Have fun,
Ana

and welcome to my first blog entry!

This is supposed to be a place where I can share my experiences and give you at least some insight of what life is like when you re an athlete. Since it's always hard for me to start, and I am still getting adjusted to how this is going to work, I think it might be best if I just quickly tell you what I have been up to over the summer...

So, I was done skiing in the last week of April, a little earlier than usual, because I had to have a surgery done on my nose and sinuses. I had quite a few health problems during last season so I decided it was time to try get it fixed. In order to recover from it as fast as possible, I went for a study/vacation of three weeks to Alicante, Spain.

It was really nice to get somewhere warm after the season! I had various dryland camps over the summer, but was lucky enough to squeeze an other nice vacation in between them. This time a couple of friends and I backpacked through Portugal for 10 days, we saw it north to south and it was a great experience! On the way home I decided to stop in Spain once again to see some friends and visit the EXPO site in Zaragosa and I can tell you that's something worth seeing!

Well, that was about it as for the „fun" part of my summer, by the end of July it was time to put the skis back on and I had some really good training in Pitztal and Landgraaf with the Finnish team. It was as some kind of warm up for the month I would spend in Argentina, training there definitely met our expectations once again. But I will have to tell you more about that next time...

Take care, have fun..

Ana