Three days of travel and I am now in Bad Goisern Austria. I had been really dreading the travel here, in particular my flight with Air Canada, but surprisingly it was very pain free. My check in lady was probably the nicest employee working with Air Canada and seemed like she gave a hoot about athletes and the 2010 Olympics. She asked me quite a few question related to my skiing and I made my answers as simple as could be; National Team? Yes. 2010? You know it. Do you know Chandra Crawford? I’m actually her half-twin. Of course some of the answers weren’t true, but I didn’t want to complicate things, I just wanted to leave Canada without going on a shopping spree for extra-pairs-of-skis-within-allowed-baggage-dimensions-and-weight.

The usual chaos I experience when flying Air Canada. Thankfully this year was a pleasure to fly.
I met up with the team in Lyon France where we stayed the night and caught up on the previous couple of weeks. The next day, we jumped in the vans for a 10 hour drive to our home for the next few days, Bad Goisern, Austria, which would probably be best described as a mountain village. Conditions upon arrival were weak; three inches of ice is what the ski trails were shaping up to be. It was a real shame as we would have needed to drive from our hotel to find decent snow, when normally we could ski right outside our hotel.
| From OPA Tour Arrival in Lyon France |
Luckily it snowed that night and into the day, finishing off with the better part of a foot of snow. Our stay in Austria now turned into a week of amazing skiing and training. We are now hesitant to leave this place as the skiing just keeps getting better, and the food here is probably some of the best Euro cooking I’ve ever had. Unfortunately we did come here to race and not travel the best honeymoon spots in Europe, meaning our stay here will inevitably end. Tomorrow we leave for Zwiesel, Germany where we will have our first set of races; a 15km classic and a skate sprint (a combo which seems to have worked well for me in Rossland)
I guess well find out soon.
| From OPA Tour Bad Goisern, Austria |
Jess going for a little out of bounds ski (with me close behind him)
| From OPA Tour Bad Goisern, Austria |
"Jess on top of cabin"
| From OPA Tour Bad Goisern, Austria |







