China's First World Cup Mogul Event

We can definitely say that we’ve been culturally educated in the past 3 weeks, with World Cups in Finland, France and China.  We couldn’t have picked three more different countries.

We arrived in Changchun, miraculously receiving all of our bags after many connections and delays in flights, and endured the bumpy 2 hour bus ride to what felt like the most remote corner of China... Beida Lake.  Our dozing jet-lagged heads were alarmed every five minutes from the constant and seemingly unnecessary honking from the driver.  We were looking forward to getting the hotel, getting some food, and getting a good nights rest.  We hauled our luggage through the musky hallways, and in our exhausted collapse onto the beds we were shocked by the similarity in firmness to the floor.  

We shuffled our way through the maze of stairwells and hallways, past the stiff guards, and into the dining hall.  Our first introduction to the food did not look promising, with cartilage skewers, deep fried tiny fish, mystery sausage and crunchy stale rice.  I must admit it improved greatly from this, but there were many items on the buffet table that I had never seen before.  If you were not willing to be a little bit bold and adventurous, you were likely to go hungry in a place like this.  I was glad that I was open to trying new things, but also glad that I brought my Vega products to sustain my nutrition. 

The course was welcome surprise.  It was meticulously built by some of our Canadian course gurus that came early to guide the Chinese in preparing the site.  It was a relatively flat course with a long middle section that you could really carry some speed through.  Although it looked basic, there were many mistakes from the competitors because of the abrupt shape of the moguls.  It was easy to catch an edge or trip suddenly on this course, and when carrying that much speed into the bottom air you had to be really strong and forward so as not to ‘buckle’ on the jump.

We had a beautiful blue day for the contest.  I was feeling a bit more nervous than usual for some reason, and training in the morning was a disaster.  I was crashing my top air and doubting my line choice.  When I stood up there in the gate for my qualifying run, I had to put all of my energy into just being calm and focused, and gain confidence from my years of competition experience.  I qualified in 6th place.  We had a cold start for finals because of a last minute decision to cancel training due to the long, slow lift (30 minutes).  It was a quick adjustment that I had to make mentally, and again I came back to the same simple focus to put down my some of my best skiing.    

I was so happy to call my parents and tell my dad that I won a bronze medal for his birthday!  The first World Cup mogul event in China was a success.  I feel confident returning home with 3 top ten finishes (2 podiums) under my belt.