Landgraaf 3 – Lowlands Championship

Having spent a relatively sleepless night in the car at Geneva Airport, having checked in online and then rushing through security at 6am, I looked up at the information screen to discover my flight had been unceremoniously cancelled. Not cool! Everything was organised around synchronising my arrival at Dusselfdorf for onward travel to Landgraaf and an early start on the training couloirs with Alex. With the next flight at 12:30 pm the plans were slightly compromised – pretty much guaranteeing a 4pm arrival at landgraaf. I was going to book a cheap car to drive myself when arriving at Dusseldorf – at only €90 for the four days – but we agreed that a taxi would be simpler. Thankfully, when at the taxi stand in Dusseldorf I asked the price of the 109km ride and it was quoted at a ridiculous €500 !!!  The only economical option is to book a small hire car before the flight and then they have to upgrade it with no extra charge if they can only supply a big car. The real underlying issue though is that for a place like Landgraff you need to be there the night before if you are training through the day. Alex meanwhile did very well – training from morning until 7pm despite his own lack of sleep! Note: Geneva does not respect the European data roaming charges! Fortunately my telephone data connection cut off automatically after €60 to limit the rip off. 

Thankfully Alex had managed to attach himself to various training groups and just worked away at the things he had learned the previous week. The good quality of his skiing was commented on by other coaches and ex international racers. 

Although Alex was skiing well he was still struggling with consistently getting to the bottom of the courses, so there was a bit of work to do – though we didn’t quite expect the very messy mixture of ice and weirdly formed ruts that the actual race would present….