March 29, 2011 (Canmore, AB) – Hello to all ski lovers out there, it’s my first blog and I’ll try not to bore you too much with it….so enjoy it… 2010/2011 season is over now and I guess I’ll like to talk about all ups and downs and all the bad and (not so many) good decisions I’ve made in past few month, about “good living”, and rolling big of Canadian National Ski Team at the Tour de Ski, excitement and experience of World Champs in Oslo, Norway – keep reading and check out Babikov’s blog here.

FIRST HALF OF THE SEASON….slow…

Let’s start with beginning of the World Cup season in Gallivare, Sweden and (very depressing for me) Kuusamo, Finland. I’m one of those all dogs that need a good, and I mean very good amount of hours on snow, before I can ski fast. That’s why I usually skip these couple of early World Cups races of the season. I guess looking at youngsters such Devon and Alex, I’ve decided to give it a chance…turned out as an “Epic Fail”. Not only I didn’t race well but also screwed up my shape for the next races, just because there were not enough time for good training.

Than was “pretty good” 17th place (considering that “Epic Fail” from above) result for me in La Clusaz, France World Cup. I always like racing there, first of all, there some very serious climbing involved and a lot of it, and secondly it’s pretty high altitude, about 1600 meters above the sea level.

From there team moved to Davos, SUI for pre-Tour de Ski training camp. Svetlana and Sergey (my wife and son) visited me there for Christmas. Some great training + family time = I’m happy 🙂

THE TOUR DE SKI…. WORLD CHAMPS….WORLD CUP FINALS….faster, but still slow….

Can’t say that I expected better result than 9th place overall at the last year’s Tour de Ski, but this time it didn’t go my way at all. With some bad sprinting at the beginning and losing a ski during 20km Pursuit, but holding strong at the end, I finished it with 21st place in overall. Amazing job by Devon, winning a stage and medalling on couple more, as well as Alex by finishing pretty much all the stages in top 10. Well at least I had a chance to live a week like a Rock Star, riding a very nice tour bus between the stages. Yea Buddy…

Very tired and not satisfied with my season so far, I got back to Canmore, and put the pedal to the floor with training for the 2011 World Championship in Oslo. It’s very hard to describe that atmosphere we had there, just going to say that was The Best skiing time in my life. I’ve never seen people so fired up about ski racing. Just imagine about 200 000 people, camping for two weeks out on the trails, and cheering us every day, that’s a spirit of skiing in Norway. It’s made it even more special when Alex and Devon became World Champions in Team Sprint relay. I personally, had my best (World Championship) 15th place in 30km Pursuit and 17th at 50km skate. Again not the best but I’ll take it.

I found my shape in the end of the season, with 8th place at 20km Pursuit in Lahti, Finland, and having a couple solid “top 15” races at World Cup Finals in Falun, Sweden.

So it wasn’t my best season, but also not the worst one. It will just make me train way harder in upcoming summer. What doesn’t kill you, that makes you stronger, at least that what “they” say.

Also I’ll say “Big Respect” to my friend George Grey, and thank you for all those days we spent at the many camps and races. You had an awesome career. We’ll miss you teammate.

Now I’ll have couple is week to rest and recover, and then back to the battle. Very excited about two things for now, first – it’s a start of another soccer season, and second – my Wipeout Canada episode on TV on April 14th. But about that in my next blog.

P.S. Huge THANKS to my friend Sergey Yermolayev for this website….