Patrick Biggs' Blog

Happy Holidays everyone!

I hope this letter finds everyone in good health and good spirits. There’s been a lot transpire in the ski world over the past month. Some very good news, but a lot bad. The safety of our sport has really come into question with 20 season ending injuries in the first 20 world cup races. There’s a lot of discussion amongst athletes and the FIS as to why so many injuries. From my perspective, the FIS ski dimension rule changes have done the opposite of what was intended. The wider skis are more dangerous to ski on, period. It’s been disheartening to watch the Canadian team dwindle with the loss of five of our top skiers in the first month of racing. Just as in any sport, when injury strikes, opportunities are created for other team members to step up to the plate and grasp at the chance to prove themselves.

In the second World Cup slalom of the season, Monday in Alta Badia, I rebounded from a rather disappointing first race in Levi and finished a respectable 21st. On a rather unusual course set by the Croatians (pictures of the combos on my website) I had my strongest first run finish in years, coming through in 14th from start position 51. Unfortunately I struggled on the second run set by my own coach and moved back to 21st. It was a great day for Canada with four racers in the 30, with Mike Janyk being the fastest in 5th position. With the majority of the races coming up in January, I’m feeling confident that things are moving in the right direction. The consistency I’ve lacked in the past is now a thing of the past. With the consistency in place, I feel I’m growing more confident and faster with every run.

With the Olympic slalom only two months away, I’m still searching for two top 12 finishes in the World Cup to qualify. I have confidence in my plan. I believe it will happen.

Right now, I’m on my way back home to Ottawa for a short break before returning to Europe for the bulk of the season. The next race is on the 6th of January in Zagreb, Croatia.

A friend made up some Biggs fan wear hats. They will be available for $25 in two sizes (S/M flexfit and L/XL flexfit) while still around. Get them quick!

An interesting course set by Croatian coach Ante Kostelic had heads turning on the slopes monday. Ante has been known for pushing the boundaries of slalom sets for years, including his horizontal haipin at the 2006 Torino Olympics and his extended flush that took out a third of the field in Levi 2008. In Alta Badia this week he set two rather unusual combos including an offset delay and an in-to hairpin (these are not legal in the rule book, but because they can be considered a delay gate with the two poles close together, it flies). The tricky combos claimed quite a few victims, including top skiers Hargin and Matt who got disoriented and missed a gate. I took special care to spend the full 45 minute inspection memorizing this course to make sure I didn’t repeat a mistake i made last year in Wengen. A sketch below shows some of the combos described above.

Today I raced in my first Europa Cup of the season. It was a good start finishing in 17th, 4th on the second run. It was a really stacked field, so I was starting almost the same as a world cup (52nd).

The full results can be seen here

I just finished racing in my first world cup GS in several years. My GS skiing has come a long way since the start of the summer where I felt like a skiing giraffe on the longer skis. It takes quite a while to become comfortable at the higher speed and used to the longer turn shape which were quite foreign to me.

All week, the challenging piste in Val D’Isere caused problems for the best in the world with a steep face that never seems to let up from start to finish. What made it rather challenging was more to do with the snow that the actual hill. For some reason, they decided not to inject the entire hill, but only the SG line. This meant for the GS race, we were going from injected gates to soft/grippy snow every few turns as we crossed the SG line. Despite the snow and my late start number (60), I was able to finish 36th. Although I didn’t qualify for the second run, being only 0.3 seconds from the cut was good motivation to keep pushing forward with the GS races. My plan is to race in the next WC GS in Alta Badia on Sunday. For now, I’m close-by racing in some Europa Cup slaloms in the Dolomites.

The biggest disappointment of the weekend was the loss of my team-mate to an ACL injury. JP is Canada’s top GS skier, and with his recent performances, a medal hopeful in Vancouver. In Val D’Isere at the final GS split, he was sitting in 3rd, just .04 seconds behind the leader. We’ll miss having him to chase in training this season. He’s scheduled for surgery this week in London, Ontario.

Since my earlier post last week i’ve had a bit of a change of plans. I will no longer be racing the WC GS in beaver creek. I’ve been shifted to race in the WC GS the following weekend in Val D’Isere. I’m looking forward to a few days off now which I’ve been waiting for since Levi. A little revitalization i think will go a long way in getting me ready for the coming races.

The NOR-AM races went well in Colorado this week. I had some consistent slalom runs against a really stacked Nor-am field finishing in 6th and 7th in the two races. Although I didn’t score the FIS points i was looking for to improve my World Cup start numbers, at least I maintained my top 7 rank in the Nor-Am slalom standings so I will have many opportunities to score some points in the future.

The GS races at aspen were a little disappointing as I skied out in the first race, and hit a rock with my edge in the second run, second day and was unable to continue.