Feb. 16-19, 2005
UPDATE FROM COACH CASEY COLBY
We had a long day even before the competition started here in Rastbuchl, GER. The organizers took all the teams to a glass blowing factory and gave them a demonstration and a chance to try it for themselves. Then we all had lunch at a large brewery in Passau, not really your traditional lunch for ski jumpers; a strange sausage looking thing that was albino white and a little sketchy looking.

The competition was in the evening. Perfect conditions and very fair. I think the speed was a little too much for the first competition round, making it possible for a few younger ladies to compete with the more seasoned veterans. After the first round the US ladies were not sitting very well and were quite unhappy with any number of things; most of which were out of their control. Trying to put these frustrations aside they headed back up for the final jump. Karla had two better comp jumps after feeling really frustrated, sadly the comp was quite hard and her result wasn't as high as if they were on a bigger hill. Alissa slipped a little bit in the final round, her back was giving her some trouble after a little fall at the hotel earlier in the day left her bruised. Jess and Lindsey had two solid jumps to finish the comp and then watched as a few of the other ladies faltered when the pressure was on them to perform. Lindsey moved up to 5th, Jess to 7th. They are not terribly happy with the end result but they now know that everyone has to perform 2 good jumps each comp and maybe they shold not worry about the things out of their control.

Lindsey is in 3rd overall in the COC ranking, Jess is 7th, Alissa 10, Karla 17, and Brenna 22. Lindsey still leads the overall for the 4-hills tour and Jessica is just one good comp from being in the top 3 since the points are so close for 2-5.

Saalfelden AUT was the last event of the tour for the ladies, in Feb. Again, the conditions on the jump were great; but the living conditions were horrible. The first night we were forced to stay in farm houses that reeked of manure and were not even close to clean or sanitary. Barn cats were allowed in the eating area and on the tables, everyone shared a shower and bathroom, and the blankets for the bed were too short, even for the ladies. Some of the pictures taken by one of the other coaches showed such disgusting things that they will be included in the FIS report for the event. The coaches demanded a new housing situation and the organizers agreed. So after official training on Friday morning we were told to move to another hotel near the jumps, so we went looking for our rooms. The hotel, however, was still full and would be full until 7pm that evening. The teams of the USA, SLO, AUT, NOR, and JPN sat around the hotel restaurant for almost 8 hours waiting for rooms. The hotel was not at fault, just the organizers and their disorganization or miscommunication to all of the teams. There was a sponsor dinner at 6:30pm that evening and many of the teams decided not to go because we were still waiting on rooms. Around 7:15pm the main tour organizer arrived at our hotel and was very upset with all of us coaches for not attending the party. He told us that he would cancel the competition the following day, and to be honest, we actually didn't mind that much because we felt that an organizer that wasn't willing to follow the standards and rules of FIS didn't deserve an event of this caliber. Eventually after arguing our points to the tour organizer and showing him the pictures he calmed down and we all came to understand the others point of view. In the end, the event would happen.

Comp day. Lindsey went in the comp with some good jumps and a decent sized lead in the 4-hills overall. But something went wrong and she had a pretty terrible day. Lindsey had a bad first jump and it seemed to effect her whole approach to the second jump. Her second jump was even worse and it placed her in 13th place and she fell back into 2nd place in the 4-hills tour; which is still a very respectable finish but for her a disappointment after leading for the last 3 events.

Jessica had a better day and had a couple of good jumps. She jumped to 4th place in the event and earned enough points to move herself into 4th place in the 4-hills tour, just 9 points behind Lindsey in 2nd place. Alissa had a good 2nd jump when everyone was jumping shorter and finished in 16th place. Karla picked up the pace a bit and finished in 21st place and Brenna placed 32nd.

It was a long trip, 4 hills, 5 comps and a lot of driving. It felt like 2 months of travel and travel-related problems rolled into 2 weeks. Especially for Lindsey who was in Europe for 6 weeks in total.

Lindsey, Jessica, Alissa and I will return for the final 3 Continental cups in Norway on March
2nd.

Casey