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15 January 2004
Lithuania hasn't felt so much like home until now.
After almost three and half weeks away, I am so happy to be back
in my apartment, in my own bed, watching Eurosport in Russian.
Christmas in Slovakia feels like years ago already.
It was a rough trip to France but well worth it. Everywhere you
went in l'Alpe d'Huez you heard Lithuanian. It was sunny every day,
though we could have used more snow. Racing was well run and a lot
of fun. There were about 40 women, and I came in 2nd in GS and 3rd
in SL despite spraining my knee in training that morning. It was
a rough race, and by the finish, I was so tired I didn't even bother
to push! But it was a lot of fun. I was a little more charged for
the second run, and came out of the start singing Dancing Queen!
Standing on the podium with Angelica, a former member of the Ukraine
National Team and a Lithuanian by marriage, I told her, "kita
karta"... Next time! She is a great sportswoman and a lot of
fun to race with. I certainly look forward to that next time!
The biggest news of the week was that Jason took 2nd, only a couple
seconds behind Linas, in the GS. Some of the guys here are pretty
quick and that really is something for Jason. Congratulations to
him! Standing on the side of the hill watching, I listened for the
times, and knew as soon as he came in he was third after the first
run. Angelica and I stood together on the hill watching second run,
saying, "gerai, gerai!"... good, good... when his time
was announced, you could hear my "YEA!!!" at the bottom
of the hill! He had an amazing second run to over take Mindaugas
for the silver. In the slalom, he ran right after Joe first run.
Though they started about 20 seconds apart, Jason nearly caught
Joe at the finish. Unfortunately, Jason hooked a tip and lost a
ski second run, but that gave Joe a spot on the podium in his age
group and put him 8th over all ("I'm eighth, I'm eighth, I'm
eighth!" was Joe's chant for the rest of the week). It was
a good week of racing for Team Virskus!
I talked to Irma yesterday and she told me that her Dad heard about
Linas and I on the news and was very excited about it... what they
said exactly I don't know, but it must have been good! I like Lithuania,
I'm famous here!
Saturday morning, the five of us, my brothers and my parents, went
to Chamonix to watch my friend Stan race in the World Cup Slalom.
It rained and rained, but it was a great race to watch. Bode came
in third and won the combined. Herman was there and so was Lasse
Kjus from Norway. We ate tartiflette reblochon and sausage sandwiches
in the finish with plastic cups of hot wine. How French!
Monday morning Stan headed to Italy, and I had to head home. It
was a long rough trip and I'm not going to bore you with the details!
I got home wednesday morning at 5 am and I was just happy to be
here.
We'll have a race here in Lithuania this weekend, and I will start
work full-time next week.
I look forward to my parents visit in March, and a promised visit
from Malin maybe even before then.
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