January 21, 2009 19:39 by
Seth
so we lucked out on race day. for the second time we awoke to snow in sung woo, a welcome sight that i knew could save the race. time trials had proved to be sketchy as the course speeds were simply way too high for the size of the features that had been built. it dumped and dumped as hard as i've ever seen it snow and at a rate of around 2 inches per half hour the speeds on the course slowed back to a doable level.. the first heats went great. i crushed the first run. had a poor start in round two but played it patient and got by the swiss rider mid course. the semifinal wasn't to go as smoothly. after getting a great start i literally rode the start sequence too well creating too much speed for the first minor wu tang jump. i overshot the whole landing and watched as the other three riders caught tranny behind me and reeled me in on the way to the first turn. that was where it all went wrong. i got the board tangled with my friend tom velisek of canada and teh next thing i knew i was mid heelside catch whipping myself onto the wall of turn one. watching the others ride away.. i got up but with the lack of momentum as well as passing lanes my fate was sealed to not challenge for the world title for the first time in my career. i made up for it in the small final taking my third heat win of the day to bring home fifth. the low point of my world champs record but all things considered the best i could do on the day after the crash.. more on all that followed soon..