Hi everyone.

I have just left Formigal, Spain, where I spent one week competing in the World Junior Alpine Championships. This was my second time competing in the event; last year being my first in Flachau, Austria.

I arrived the night before the first downhill training day. Unfortunately I had to miss the Super G, however an 11th place in a World Cup Ski Cross definitely made it worth it!

Being only my second ever downhill, I was a little nervous to begin with. We were given only one training run (there were originally three schedualed) due to poor weather conditions. It started pouring with rain on the second training day, so in order to get the race off before the snow disappeared, they decided to run the race a day earlier. I skied the top section of the 2-minute downhill very well. Approaching the technical section around the middle, the course was extremely bumpy and I lost my balance and almost took a fall. I managed to stay on my skis, however missed the next gate in doing so. I was quite disappointed that I didn't finish the downhill, especially given that I skied the top so well.

Next was the slalom. Once again it rained and the snow was horrible; wet and soft. Starting with bib number 59 (with 39 points!), the course was basically a mogul field by the time I went down. It was just a fight to stay in the course. I made it down the first run but didn't manage to finish the second. I hit a huge hole, leant in a bit and lost balance. So another DNF to add to the list!

The final race of the week was the Giant Slalom. I was really looking forward to this event because it is my strongest of them all. Similar to the slalom though, the snow was incredibly soft and gave the girls starting at the back basically no chance. Rather than fighting to ski as fast as possible, we were fighting just to stay on our feet and in the course! I started with bib 65 with 38 points (talk about a tough field!) and finished in 57th position. Not the best result, but at least I made it down and finished!

So overall I was definitely a bit disappointed with my performance at World Juniors this year. I've got 2 Ski Cross World Cup's coming up in Switzerland to look forward to now, so hopefully I do a little better in those!

Attached are a few photos from Formigal.

Katya

Junior Champs Team



WJC Downhill Course