Hi everyone!

Graham and Anders here to talk about our recent trip to Italy, where we competed in the central European version of the SuperTour, the Alpen Cup or OPA Cup for shorthand. It was a short trip of about a week and involved three different races that took place on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and consisted of a classic sprint, 10km skate individual start, and mixed gender team relay on the last day. I (Graham) will go first and then pass it along to Anders.

This was my second year qualifying for the Opa Cup, which was pretty sweet as last year I was just happy to be there and raced as hard as I could. But this year was different since I had qualified and raced in the World Cup, I went to OPA Cup with some expectations for the results I wanted to achieve. I felt that with my level of fitness, could finish in the top 20 consistently, and if I was having a good day, I could finish in the top ten. All this however did hinge on my body adjusting well to the jet jag and while it did at the end of the trip, my body wasn’t able to get on the timezone while I was there. I’d say that the takeaway there is that going forward I need to book a flight that gets into Europe in the morning rather than the afternoon so I can sleep on the plane and when I land I should in theory be on European time and be able to perform at my absolute best. Anyway, the trip was great and helped me get ready for the SuperTour Finals, so I’m now gonna pass it over to Anders.  

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This year OPA Cup finals were held in Toblach, Italy. Toblach is a beautiful town in northern Italy. This was my first OPA cup and I was really excited about the opportunity to go on this trip. The Opa Cup trip is a really good opportunity for younger athletes to get experience with racingand all the other components of racing in europe. It helps prepare younger athletes for future potential World Cup racing.

We stayed at the Hotel Dolomiten. The US Ski Team has a great relationship with this hotel and that definitely helps in a lot of aspects. The race course is a five minute walk away from the hotel. The course itself is really fun and is a great course. I really liked the nice constant-grade climbs and the flowing downhills. The conditions on the other hand were a little less fun to race in for me. It was pretty warm there every day, so as soon as the sun hit the trails, the snow began to rapidly break down and become mashed potatoes consistency. While this did make the skiing rather difficult, it was good practice because skiing fast in these conditions is a veryimportant skill. I definitely felt like I had some room for improvement in that department and I look forward to training in spring skiing conditions to get faster. I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet athletes from other countries too. All in all, it was a super fun trip and I felt like I learned a lot!