After Squaw I was pretty sore from crashing and had to take a few days off. I wanted to be ready for Kirkwood and be confident with my skiing. This has been a really tough year on me mentally and it has started to downward spiral my confidence. When you start to crash a lot it makes it hard to think about anything in the gate except crashing. Squaw was my 5th pretty large crash in a row. I arrived at Kirkwood feeling pretty confident but mentally a little off. I placed second there last year and wanted to just have a strong finish to make me feel confident about my skiing. The first day I I picked a pretty mellow line to just gain back confidence that I can ski and not crash. I did just that but did not feel that great about my run. I was sitting in 6th place going into the finals. Looking at the next days venue I picked out a little more rowdy of a line that I was really passionate about. The next morning I changed my mind and mellowed out my line again. My good friend Janina skied the line that I wanted to ski, I was so stoked for her, but it made me want to ski it on my superfinals run. I was sitting in 5th going into the superfinals so I figured I had nothing to lose. I went for the line, but as I was skiing into the chute I had a bad feeling. I needed more speed for where I wanted to ski and next thing I knew I was coming up short on the air and landing on some rocks and cartwheeling down the venue. I felt no pain at the moment, but as I started to hike up to get my ski I knew I had tweaked my knees pretty good. ( I think I have a slight tear in my MCL.) I ended up 5th, my friend Janina won and also won the coveted sickbird with the line I was so passionate about, I am so stoked for her, but wish my confidence would have been better to ski the line. The good news is I still ended up 5th out of 30 girls. I think I just need a little break from competing for a little while, I know I can ski but have had a tough year. I hope my knee will heal, so I can try to go defend my title in Snowbird next weekend.
2 comments:
Keep your head up girl! Way to send it!
Crystal, keep your chin up! Life's like the ocean, lots of ups and downs; rarely is it calm. You have raised the bar on competitive skiing so much in the last few years! You will get through the tough times and dominate again! I can feel it.
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