So the past few days have been exciting, interesting and a bizarre new experience.

After the Europa Cups in Abetone, we headed to Spain where I will be for the next few weeks. It was a hell of a drive (14hrs +), but was made easier by the beautiful views of the Mediterranean Sea. We travelled through Tuscany, along the south of France, through Monte Carlo and then finally into Spain.

We are based in La Molina, a large and fast developing ski resort located in the Pyrénées, right on the Spanish-French border. The weather is beautiful here; sunny and hot during the day, and just cold enough at night for the snow to freeze over again.

Yesterday's training was one of the best days training I have ever had in my life. And I have done a lot of training in my lifetime, so that is definitely a big call!

We set a full length, 40 gate GS course down the Europa Cup race hill; an extremely technical and terrain-changing piste. We started training early in the morning just as the sun was coming up at 7am. I had the course to myself, and a personal skidoo driver for each run. It was World Cup treatment. It definitely goes to show that it's all about who you know in this world, especially in the world of skiing racing.

After 5 runs of full length GS training in a perfect, unmarked course, we finished training at 8:30am. Why can't every training day be that easy and efficient? The weather, once again, was warm and sunny, so we spent the rest of the morning free skiing and discovering the rest of La Molina.

It keeps getting better too. Today was just as good as yesterday. I had my first ever full FIS race victory in Europe / North America!

We left early this morning for a GS race in Soldeau, Andorra (add another country to my list of ski destinations!). The course was unbelievably difficult, easily the most difficult course I've ever skied. Even just looking out of the start gate was intimidating! The hill dropped away from you incredibly fast. There was a lot of terrain in the course, and to finish-off the 1 min 12 second course, there was a 12-gate pitch into the finish that appeared almost vertical when looking down it.

It is well up there as one of the toughest GS race hills in the world.

After the first run, I was in fourth place. I skied very tentatively mainly due to the demands of the hill. I was ready to tackle the course for second run, however, and an aggressive, risk-taking run paid off in the end. I made an enormous come-back (although Matt reckons that's where I should have been from after first run) and ended up winning the race by 2.5 seconds.

I was extremely happy with my performance today. It's great to finally have a win, and is definitely a real confidence booster leading in to these Europa Cups next week in Spain, and in particular the World Junior Championships in a few weeks time.

Katya Crema