GDHL News

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Calcutta Wrap-Up and Looking Ahead

Thanks to everyone concerned for a great opening to our season on Saturday evening.  Rip and Mary did a spectacular job with the auctions thanks to many enthusiastic bidders.  For better or worse, Sunday morning proved that the decision not to race was correct.  Let's try to appear nonchalant as we contemplate the prospect of the delayed start of the season and attend to some administrative details from the Calcutta.

The final start list is here. The final team list is here.  If you didn't get your bib on Saturday evening, you can collect it and your loot bag from Kylie in the Race Office.

The winners of the bib draw, often upon the default of those who weren't paying attention when their tickets were drawn, are as follows (bib 10 followed by bib 20):

Race 1 - Samantha Cowan and Jerry Patten

Race 2 - Andrew Athey and Tom Caswell

Race 3 - Jeff Sutherland and Ian Latimer

Race 4 - Mansell Nelson and James Mathers

Race 5 - Richard Lavery and Steve Jarvis

Race 6 - John Barber and Brook Dyson

Winners may use the bibs themselves or give them to others, but no one may use a preferred bib more than once in the season.  Don't worry about actually getting bib 10 or 20.  Just show up with your regular bib and the Coyotes will be expecting someone in those slots.

After the auction, team owners, with prices paid, are as follows:

Big John - FAB 11 consortium (Tony Ciccocioppo) - $1200

Birches - Team Futures consortium (Tom Dyson) - $1700

Comet - Bobbo (Bob Callow) - $1200

Landslide - Johnny B (John Banfield) - $1700

Millennium - Bobbo (Bob Callow) - $1800

National - Team Futures consortium (Tom Dyson) - $1500

Partridge - FAB 11 consortium (Tony Ciccocioppo) - $1700

Pen - Suds (Jeff Sutherland) - $1500

Team members may purchase a 5% interest in their respective teams for 5% of the price paid (drop the zeroes and multiply by 5).  By my unofficial calculation, the pot is $12,300.  GDHL takes 10% off the top, leaving $11,070 to be split $5535 for first ($276.75 per participating team member), $3321 for second and $2214 for third.  If you didn't speak to Treasurer Trent's Team while leaving the podium and want to buy your share, email Trent right away and let him know that you want in.  You must provide your member number for billing.

Finally, your committee is already looking ahead to the year end social event, which will be on Saturday 5 March.  This has recently involved a sit down dinner followed by presentation of GDHL awards.  Please speak to a member of the committee or send us an email with suggestions or requests concerning this year's event.

This Weekend and Beyond

  • Friday GS training with Sandy Nattress is on Big John at 9:30 and 1:00.  Contact Laurel to register.
  • Adult gate training is GS on Birches both Saturday and Sunday at 9:30.
  • Adult tech meets at the National chair both Saturday and Sunday at 9:30.
  • Fast and Female meets at the National chair on Saturday only at 9:30.
  • Interclub is at Devil's Glen for GS at 1:00 on Saturday.  At last word, there was room for more team members.  Contact Taylor Simms-Brown today (Thursday) if you want to participate.

Unfortunately all of the Club's race operation resources are dedicated to the NZ Cup FIS races this weekend, so the start of the GDHL season will be delayed until Saturday 23 January.  (All the more reason to visit DG with the interclub team.) But the start will be with a bang!  It will be Super G day, along the Cruiser / Bowie course.  So you will certainly want to take the opportunity for speed training with Sandy next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings at 9:30 and next Friday afternoon at 1:00.  Sandy will also offer gateless training on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons at 1:00.  Contact Laurel to register.

Diversions

Click here to watch an engaging interview with Mikaela Shiffrin concerning her injury and potential return to racing.  Also at the bottom of the page is a pic of her displaying impressive musculature while doing chin-ups.  The interview is from NBC Sports and includes a clip of an unsuccessful backseat SL run by Ted Ligety at Adelboden last weekend.

Meanwhile, the Women's World Cup tour took a page from the GDHL rule book and held a DH consisting of two consecutive runs over the same (shortened) course, with no re-set or second run inspection.  They didn't adopt our "best of" scoring and had a flip 30 start order for the second run.  Interestingly, although there were changes in the standings from the first run to the final, no one improved her first run time on the second.  Most were 0.5 to 1.5 seconds slower.  Places 1 to 5 on the first run finished in the same order on the second run and overall.  Watch here to see Larissa Yurkiw take second behind Lindsey Vonn.

Stay patient, train hard and we'll see you on the hill :)

James Mathers