Feb 09, 2006 BAIERSBRONN GER by Casey Colby & Abby Hughes

Casey's comments:

After a somewhat disappointing finish in Slovenia, we drove back to Munich and picked up the 3 older ladies at the airport and headed west. We spent a night in Hiterzarten and had a great day of training for all six ladies on the K-95. The Canadians joined us in the afternoon before we headed to Baiersbronn for the 3rd COC of the winter season. Since we have arrived in Bairesbronn we have done very little. Our official training was scheduled for Wednesday evening but there was too much snow and wind to have any type of quality training so the training jumps were moved to Thursday afternoon, a few hours before the competition. So Thursday arrived and it was still dumping snow, I would guess about 40cm worth of snow fell on the jump in the past 48 hours, but down here in town it was mixed with rain and sleet. The training jumps were again postponed until just prior to the event because hill prep took longer than expected.

So the evening started out with a training round followed by the trial round. Conditions were pretty good for most people, again there were a few unlucky skiers in each round that get a small gust of tailwind but the majority of the skiers had a fair chance.

After two good training jumps of around 75-76 meters Elisabeth had a little extra trouble in the first round and jumped 70.5 meters. She was in the unlucky spot of being the lady in 31st place after the first round. Brenna was one of the few that was unlucky with the wind and was also a bit late on the take-off causing her to lose 5 meters or more on her first jump as well, putting her in 24th place.

After the first round USA and Canada: Nata 13th, Alissa 11th, Katie 9th, Atsuko 8th, Abby 7th, Jess 4th(tied) and Lindsey was leading after Anette Sagen laid down on her back after landing a jump of 97 meters, 5 more than the next longest jump.

In the second round Brenna made a big leap that was the 7th best jump of the round and moved up a bunch of places. Alissa had some bad air but still had really good style and only lost a few spots. Abby was as solid as a rock and had two good consistent jumps, but her style on the 2nd jump was 7 points better than the first. It is amazing what a little telemark landing can do now-a-days in these close comps. Jessica (with her best style points in a long time) and Lindsey also had two good jumps each but were edged out a little bit by two great performances by Anette Sagen and Juliane Seyfahrt. Juliane jumped 98 meters in the final round and Anette jumped 95.5 which put them both just ahead of Lindsey who had a little trouble on the landing at 92.5 meters.

Today's Results:
  1. Anette Sagen NOR 261
  2. Juliane Seyfahrt GER 259.5
  3. Lindsey Van USA 254.5
  4. Elena Runggaldier ITA 246.5
  5. Jessica Jerome USA 246
  6. Line Jahr NOR 244
  7. Abby Hughes USA 228
  8. Atsuko Tanaka CAN 222
  9. Ayumi Watase JPN 216
10. Lisa Demetz ITA 215.5
11. Katie Willis CAN 213.5
11. Ulrike Grassler GER 213.5
13. Brenna Ellis USA 208
14. Alissa Johnson USA 206.5
17. Nata DeLeeuw CAN 199.5
31. Elisabeth Anderson USA

Overall Ranking (unofficially):
  1. Sagen NOR
  2. Van USA
  3. Jerome USA
  4. Jahr NOR
  5. Tanaka CAN
  6. Hughes USA
  11. Johnson USA
  14. Ellis USA
  16. Willis CAN
  33. DeLeeuw CAN
  45. Anderson USA

Abby's comments:

After a 2 day blizzard and canceling 2 scheduled Official Trainings we finally knocked off the first Continental Cup (COC) of the 4 hills tour in Baiersbronn GER. At least the competition didn't get canceled because waiting around all day to find out you only get to wait longer is not too much fun, and that's what happened on Jessica's 19th birthday on Wednesday.

I must say the most interesting part of Baiersbronn isn't the ski jump or the hotel and people, it was the food. We had fried pancakes one night for dinner and a piece of white wonder bread with a slice of ham and pineapple covered in cheese (Casey's FAVORITE!) and then a cherry on top. But enough about the food!

The competition was surprisingly really good considering they had received over a foot of new snow during the blizzard. After the first round Lindsey was leading, and we were all pretty excited about that, but unfortunately Anette Sagen from Norway and Juliane Seyfahrt from Germany had incredible second jumps. Juliane jumped 98 meters, breaking the old hill record on the K85, HS90. As for the Americans we finished pretty well as a team. Lindsey came in 3rd, Jessica 5th, Abby 7th, Brenna 13th (24th after the first round) Alissa placed 14th and Elisabeth barely missed the cut at 31st. well cya later!