USCSA Nationals, Day 3

Day 3 in terms of Whitney's competitions was giant slalom. It was yet another snowy day but the snow was lighter and the winds were stronger. The GS course was on the slope that the alpine slalom was on; it was steep and long. There was some issues at the start - they printed the wrong start list for the women, the timing start gate was throwing some of the riders off and they weren't sure when to go, and as it's a college competition, there were a few riders that were hung over and at least one that was enjoying a cold one at the start. All that aside, they got things going and I was lucky to catch Whitney in her first run. Her coach told her she was going down 20-something but they had the slalom start list where she was listed third. They gave the girls the option of letting the guys run first while they got the right start list or they could run off the slalom list. They decided to go with the slalom list. The first rider didn't show so Whitney went down second (she had been listed as third), good thing I was paying attention. She has a distinctive riding style so I could tell it was her coming down. I was confused since we had no idea of the issues at the top.

She was pretty happy with her first run, at least until the top girls came down and were 3 seconds faster than her. It's hard, but not impossible to make up that kind of time. When all the riders finished their first run, they took a long break to reset the course and also take down the USCSA inflatable that goes across the finish line. It had been windy all morning and it picked up more so during the break so down came the inflatable. Whitney's second run was faster than her first, but not enough to make up the time and move up. She finished the day in 8th place.

She was a bit frustrated with the coaching she's gotten recently. There were few organized practices and they wouldn't set up the snowboard gates. The school has some but "no one" knows how to set them so they pretty much sit unused since they won't let Whitney set them for herself. It's hard to do well on a gate event if you can't practice on gates.