As we wrap our first ski weekend of the season, one of Maine’s Olympic hopefuls will be winging her way to Canada to start another World Cup season.
Kirsten Clark will travel from Colorado to Lake Louise, where training begins Tuesday for a pair of downhills next Friday and Saturday, with a wrap-up Super-G, Sunday.
The women’s season opener follows a downhill and Super-G for men this weekend. It’s the beginning of a full schedule that will have the U.S. ski teams competing in Colorado, France, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Italy and Germany before gathering at Torino, Italy, for the Olympics in February. After that, it will be Norway, Finland and the World Cup finals in Sweden before the U.S. Alpine Nationals at Sugarloaf on March 25-30.
The focus of the mainstream media will be on the Olympics, but the skiers have to maintain their concentration for the entire schedule. We only start hearing about these skiers when the season starts, but they have been training for several months.
Clark, from Raymond, had trained in Portillo, Chile.
“I had a great summer and prep period this summer,” she said. “I was in great shape physically and skiing well, better than in prior years when I was strong on the World Cup Circuit.”
When I caught up with her, she was still in Colorado where she was training at Copper Mountain. She had arrived a week later than the rest of the team because of a staph infection behind her knee. She had a cyst removed from the area, and nine days earlier some scope work, so the exact source of the infection was unclear.
“I don’t have any pain in my knee, which is huge, and since there wasn’t a crash (Clark had a bad crash two years ago, making last season a comeback year) to overcome the mental aspect, I am picking up where I left off in Portillo in August,” said Clark.
When I asked if she was close to 100 percent, she replied, “I was feeling 100 percent before my staff infection. Of course, this took a bit out of me. I lost a bit of muscle and had four weeks to work my butt off to get back as much as possible.”
Being an Olympic year, Clark’s goal is to win an Olympic medal.
“If the Olympics were tomorrow, I think it would be tough,” she said. “But I have until February to get into top form, and I think it is an attainable goal. I will go out and give 100 percent, and whatever happens, I know I will have done everything in my power to have performed my best.”
In the 2003 World Championships, she finished second in the Super-G. Her World Cup results include one downhill victory and a string of medals and top-10 finishes. Clark is the only American to win four straight national downhill titles – four of her six national titles. All those top finishes on the World Cup were against the same competitors she will face in the Olympics, an indication that she can win, if she puts it all together.
The 12-year veteran is looking forward to returning to Sugarloaf for the Nationals, but she won’t be announcing her retirement.
“I plan on going on another year, maybe more,” Clark said. “I am not committing myself to anything, because too much depends on my mental aspect, and my physical health. But my desire to win in still strong, and I still have goals to achieve in skiing.”
Some big first steps toward those goals could come this week at Lake Louise, so check the Outdoor Life Network for a chance to see some of it on TV. Anyone with Canadian cable channels might also find live telecasts of the World Cup. We’ll be watching the results, the first of which will be found on www.usskiteam.com.
Closer to home, watch for special events as more areas open. Next weekend is the annual Santa weekend at Sunday River. Wear a Santa suit Saturday and donate $10 to the Bethel Rotary gift fund, and receive a free lift ticket for that day and two more good through Dec. 16. Pre-registration is required, so check www.sundayriver.com.
We also learned that the town of Bethel is doing something about the high price of gas. Any accommodations booked through the Bethel Area Reservations Service will qualify. Bookings of two nights or more will be eligible for $10 a day in gas money. It should help to bring in some skiers and snowmobilers from away. Check the Gift of Gas at www.bethelmaine.com.
Our annual trip to the Boston Ski Show was made more interesting as ski areas were announcing openings. By the time the show began on Thursday, Nov. 17, Sunday River had opened and was making more snow to get as much terrain available for this first big weekend. Sugarloaf and Bretton Woods were both open.
The theme of the this year’s show was supporting our Olympic skiers. Ski Team vice president Tom Kelly announced a U.S. Ski Team Day for Feb. 10-11.
Watch this space for details as that date draws closer.
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