After Squaw I was pretty sore from crashing and had to take a few days off. I wanted to be ready for Kirkwood and be confident with my skiing. This has been a really tough year on me mentally and it has started to downward spiral my confidence. When you start to crash a lot it makes it hard to think about anything in the gate except crashing. Squaw was my 5th pretty large crash in a row. I arrived at Kirkwood feeling pretty confident but mentally a little off. I placed second there last year and wanted to just have a strong finish to make me feel confident about my skiing. The first day I I picked a pretty mellow line to just gain back confidence that I can ski and not crash. I did just that but did not feel that great about my run. I was sitting in 6th place going into the finals. Looking at the next days venue I picked out a little more rowdy of a line that I was really passionate about. The next morning I changed my mind and mellowed out my line again. My good friend Janina skied the line that I wanted to ski, I was so stoked for her, but it made me want to ski it on my superfinals run. I was sitting in 5th going into the superfinals so I figured I had nothing to lose. I went for the line, but as I was skiing into the chute I had a bad feeling. I needed more speed for where I wanted to ski and next thing I knew I was coming up short on the air and landing on some rocks and cartwheeling down the venue. I felt no pain at the moment, but as I started to hike up to get my ski I knew I had tweaked my knees pretty good. ( I think I have a slight tear in my MCL.) I ended up 5th, my friend Janina won and also won the coveted sickbird with the line I was so passionate about, I am so stoked for her, but wish my confidence would have been better to ski the line. The good news is I still ended up 5th out of 30 girls. I think I just need a little break from competing for a little while, I know I can ski but have had a tough year. I hope my knee will heal, so I can try to go defend my title in Snowbird next weekend.
Keep your head up girl! Way to send it!
Crystal, keep your chin up! Life’s like the ocean, lots of ups and downs; rarely is it calm. You have raised the bar on competitive skiing so much in the last few years! You will get through the tough times and dominate again! I can feel it.