Otepaa World Cup

Photos

Thu, Jan  29, 2009 - By Pete Vordenberg

All Hands.

Chris Cook.  Winner of US National Prelim... by 7 seconds.  Just out of qualifying here.

Hell yeah they like ski racing here.

Give it up for Estonia.  One of the absolute best stops on the World Cup.

Rolling.

Kikkan Randall.

Andy Newell.

Petra.

Set.

Virpi.

Great skis.  The wax team has done a great job this year.  Here in Otepaa we had really good skis.  The whole team - athletes, coaches, waxers, PT (self funded Andy Facteau), Doc (self funded David Gorman) all worked together really well.  Great team work.  Thanks all!

WIGD.  This is where it goes down.  The last stretch is where the power gets put on.

It is tough to come up short of expectation and goals.  But we know where we are falling short and our motivation to work on it is high.  The evening of this race the team was in the weight room (was in the plan to begin with).  Though it can be difficult to keep a positive attitude there is no time to sulk... sulk or swim you could say.  With races every weekend, with worlds coming soon and the Olympics really soon and some real ground to make up sulking or getting disappointed is a waste of time and energy and there is never time or energy to spare.

The next stop is Russia.  We fly out of Tallinn tomorrow.

The podium is our goal.

ALL IN.

All photos by Andy Facteau.  Andy thanks so much for your time, energy, PT work, photography, dragging our stuff around, doing what's asked, paying your own way especially in these tough economic times (that's All In), thanks for all the fun, well thanks for most of the fun anyway... we appreciate it man.  We owe you and we'll never be able to repay.  Thank you.