It has been a couple of really slow days. The rain came in Thursday night and has only taken a break from showering us for a total of about 3-4 hours. The training was canceled yesterday in hopes of protecting the jump until competition day, which, in hind-sight, was probably a very good idea. So today, we woke up and it was still raining. All of the snow that was in town, about a half meter, is now gone and the ground is green and brown. It was absolutely pouring when we arrived at the jumps. When the ladies returned from their warm-up they were all about 20 lbs heavier. When the trial round was about to start the rain seemed to let up and the low clouds were being blown out and things appeared to be getting better, but this did not last long. After the first 10-15 jumpers the rain came back and the changing winds returned to become even more inconsistent than before. There was no sense to the light being changed from red to green. Sometimes it was raging tailwind and sometimes it was raging headwind; it was like rolling the dice and trying to predict the outcome.After the first comp round a few strange things had happened. The leader was a SLO lady, Maja Vtic, that has never been on the podium before. She had a good jump and the most beneficial wind imaginable and was in the lead by 8.5 points over 2nd place. 2 Japanese skiers were 2 and 3, Jess was 4 Lindsey was 5 and so one. The other crazy thing that happened deals with Brenna. She had a better than normal jump and she actually had really good wind. But I think that too many things changing from the jump before she was feeling to stable with the wind and better jump. She wound up pushing her skis away right from the beginning of the flight and got out of control with her skis and had to set down at 54 meters.Since the rain was so strong we did not have a reverse order or a cut, all the ladies just returned to the top of the jump ASAP and we headed into the 2nd round. With the wind still blowing inconsistently I was hoping for a little good karma this round. I figured that because only one of our US Ladies had decent wind the first round, things had to be better for the 2nd round. I was almost right. After the first 10 skiers of the final round the wind started to die and things were pretty fair for the final 15-20 skiers. So the Ladies from the USA faired pretty well in some respects. Jess and Lindsey were 2 of only 5 skiers that had 2 jumps over 80 meters, and they were both close to the K-point on each jump. they Just couldn't regain the points needed to make up the difference from the 1st round, but they did improve. Results: 1. Monika Pogladic SLO 226 2. Maja Vtic SLO 223 3. Lindsey Van USA 220.5 4. Jessica Jerome USA 217 5. Juliane Seyfarth GER 208.5 6. Ulrike Grassler GER 208 11. Alissa Johnson USA 188.5 23 Karla Keck USA 160 30 Brenna Ellis USA 115.5** The 3 best Norwegian Ladies were forced to go back home to compete in their National Championships this weekend, that is why there are no Norge's in the results...But they will back on Monday to finish the tour. On little side note, a young Italian had the best day of her career in 8th place, Elena Runggaldier. In the COC overall the standings look like this right now:
