Jit'Journal: Catching up on New Year's Day

Jit’Journal: Catching up on New Year’s DayA lot has happened with the Europa Cup team in the last month that many of you may not know about, so let me fill you in. Lake Louise, which hosts the World Cup races for both men and women, also holds NorAm races shortly after. Chris Beckmann stomped the first of two DH’s, winning by over a second. He was followed by Erik Fisher in second and Kevin Francis in third for an American sweep. A day later it was Fisher’s turn to take his first NorAm victory, followed by Francis in second. The following two super G NorAms were held in Panorama, not too far from Lake Louise. On the first day Fisher put in a strong effort for third, while Jake Zamansky finished second the following day to cap off the series.

With good news comes bad news. On the first day of the super G at Panorama, Mitt Coats of the U.S. development team took a bad crash that tore his ACL. Mitt, a strong medal contender for World Junior Championships is a tough loss for the team. He’ll be joining me on the recovery program. It is kind of funny because both Mitt and I had surgery on our knees in the same week, both ACL. Mitt and I stay in touch and laugh at the stuff we have to deal with nowadays. Mitt will be returning to school a Dartmouth.

The ‘young guns’ of the U.S. squad now head to Hunter Mountain, New York for the next NorAm series which will include two slaloms and two GSs. A strong performance should be expected from slalom ace Drew Roberts with TJ Lanning, Roger Brown, Jesse Marshall, and Evan Weiss backing him up. Also I would like to note that Jesse Marshall had a strong performance in Bressanone, Italy taking a win in the second GS. Congrats to Jesse and the guys who put one in there up in Canada!

It has been some time now that I have considered whether or not I should continue writing Jit’s Journals. It could be tough to let you in on our secret little world since I am for the moment injured and not a part of it. So with that I have decided to write one more after this, to keep all of you in the know one last time. Till then, have fun, train hard, and ski fast.

Jit