Tchuse Austria,
You were fun but it was time to cross
over to Italy for Trofeo Topolino.
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| IR crew standing in front of the Australia House sign in Leogang |
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| In the finish area of the Hahnenkamm |
All six of us, Brett, Annie, Sarah, Oli, Maddie and myself drove in our lovely
Volkswagen, nicknamed Sandra (von Ausfahrt) with the parents close behind in
their cars. I was injured on the day that the team went and skied at Kitzbühel
so to my surprise we made a stop over on the way. The team made a decision to
take me there because they knew how much I wanted to go. I was so grateful! The
gondala's were named after the previous winners of the Hannenkahm downhill. We
went up in the gondola named Bode Miller and took photos of the Gondolas named
after the Canadian winners, Todd Brooker, Ken Reed and Podgorski. Once we got
to the top I checked out the start, it was brutally steep. Those World Cup
downhillers are so confident. We didn't
stay very long because we still had to cross over to Italy so we drove on and
through a huge mountain pass. Sarah managed to take heaps of photos on our
drive. There were some unbelievable castles and churches hanging off of cliffs,
we couldn't help but wonder how they got there in the first place. When we
finally crossed the border into Italy -changed radio stations and changed
languages. Going from danke to grazie in only a few short moments. Shortly
there after we began the ascent up to Folgaria. It was a cute little alpine
town situated way up in the mountains with numerous other towns surrounding it.
We stayed in San Sebastiano located about 5 kilometres out of the centre of
Folgaria in a quaint hotel called Albergo due Spade. We had a lovely dinner in
the hotel and prepped our skis for the next day. I think we all slept well that
night. The next morning we woke up, had breakfast and set off for our first
training day in Italy. The mountain was called Fondo Grande. The race piste had
been enlarged since the year before so it could fit both a slalom and a giant
Slalom side by side on the piste easily. The two training courses were
separated by B-netting. It was pretty intense training alongside other nations
such as Iceland and Croatia. Hearing all the different languages spoken around
you was quite an experience. The courses rutted up pretty quickly as the snow
was very soft from all the rain so we decided after a few runs to go and do
some free skiing before heading back to
get some lunch, do our skis and get some relaxing time in before the
opening parade. The parade was super fun. We talked to people from all parts of
the word like Chile, Great Britain, Canada and more. The girls in particular
made some really good friends from Sweden. We marched down through the main
thoroughfare of the town holding our flags. There was heaps of trading going
on. Annie traded lots of things with the other nations. The march ended in a
little square were there was a stage set up. We all stood in the square and
listened to the announcements and talked to the other nations. Dominique Paris,
an Italian world cup skier, was a guest speaker at the event and he wished us
all good luck. The night finished with a bang with fireworks. The rain that had
been threatening all day started to sprinkle so we headed back once the
ceremony had finished and went back to our hotel for dinner. The under 14's are
doing Giant slalom tomorrow and the under 16's are racing slalom. Goodluck to
everyone competing tomorrow! Lets hope the rain holds off!
Arrivedeci,
Lexxy Brial.
