Winter is in its full extent, and FIS World cup races are following one another. It’s been quite crazy since middle of December, but nevertheless it’s fun… even if there wasn’t much time for actually going skiing myself, and even less for updating this blog.
Marusa Ferk of Slovenia on start of first run of Semmering women slalom race
But now it’s February, and time for World Championships in Val d’Isere, France, which I’m skipping this time, so all of a sudden there’s more time for me going skiing, catching up with all other things which were left on side during last 2 months, and there’s even some time to write few things here :) I hope it will be interesting for you, even though I will start my writing with races and happenings, which are long gone.
Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway in Alta Badia Men GS
First thing in December was men race weekend in Val Gardena and Alta Badia, Italy. I was writing about this in my previous entry already, so I won’t be repeating myself. It was nice, course in Grand Risa was great, even for just skiing, but Internet was typical Italian…. slow like hell. But that was just nice intro into this what was waiting for us later on in Maribor, Slovenia.
Jean Baptiste Grange in first run of Alta Badia men GS
After Alta Badia, we were traveling to upper Austria, to Semmering, where women race weekend too place this year. Women World cup races in Austria have 4 locations, where Soelden with first GS race of season and Zauchensee with speed weekend are traditional, and Semmering is exchanging their World Cup races with Lienz. So this year it was Semmering’s turn to host slalom and giant slalom races of FIS women WC.
Ingrid Jacquemod of France skiing in Semmering women GS
Problem with Semmering are hotels. It’s small village, with even smaller skiing place, and virtually no hotels. Next to that, it’s pretty much only at least kinda decent skiing place close to Vienna, and weekend between Christmas and New Year, when half of Vienna is on holidays, made everything even worse. Nevertheless we found nice hotel about 15km away from Semmering. Only “problem” with this hotel was, that when we came back to hotel at 8pm, it looked like ghost house…. lights were off, there wasn’t anyone anywhere near, and luckily we had keys from from door, otherwise we would spend night on bench infront of hotel… at -20c :)
Mateja Robnik of Slovenia during Semmering GS race
Last day on morning with breakfast, I found out why this hotel turns into ghost house on evenings. Average age on breakfast was somewhere between 96 and 99 years :D
Anyway… Semmering was first race when most of members of ski mafia were at same place. Samuel from AFP, Giovanni from Pentaphoto, and me were all at track, onlyone missing was Samo from Zoom. But he was being lazy during first part of this year’s WC season, so he came back to course only in Maribor 2 weeks later.
Sanni Leinonen of Finland skiing in Semmering women GS
It was pretty cold all weekend, and Monday’s SL race was set for afternoon/evening, so cold was really bad. I was freezing up on hill, and it wasn’t much better even down in finish area for second run. But at least I got some nice skiing on morning before race :) Sometimes it’s actually great to be on WC, since you normally get free skiing tickets, not that they could be used much, and you can ski on tracks closed for public. And even better… those tracks have those nice red and blue gates set. With knowing people from teams, it’s easy to arrange run or two down the course between the gates. And yes, there’s no better fun then doing this :D
Therese Borssen of Sweden skiing in first run of Semmering women SL
So on the end freezing all day long with temperatures around -15c was not all that bad. And we sure had our share of fun. Another cool thing with races like Semmering, Kitzbuhel or Schladming are spectators. It’s completely different atmosphere when there’s 50.000 spectators like they are in Schladming, then when there’s 1000 or 2000 people watching. Even though we have more problems moving around (from course to press center) with so many people, it’s still much more pleasant atmosphere. So most of time, noone of us is complaining too much about this.
Kathrin Zettel of Austria skiing in second run of Semmering women SL
Another nice thing are our clients. We work for few big agencies abroad, and since WC tour is quite small afterall, pretty much everyone know each other. This way it’s easy to get a bit different photos. Not to mention you can have some nice chat with people, which others observe just on TV screens or from other side of the fence.
Tanja Poutiainen of Finland celebrates her medal won in Semmering SL
After finishing sending photos in press center in Semmering, we still had about 3.5h drive back home. Road was nice, so it didn’t make us much of problem, and luckily I wasn’t driving so I could catch some sleep during this drive… especially because we managed to get home around 1am. :)
Next race which followed was Zagreb, Croatia. It’s one of best organized races in WC tour, where money doesn’t play any role. Someone might look at this different, but for photographers it’s really fun to work there…. even if course is normally really icy, and we have to drive to top of Sljeme, hill above Zagreb, where races take place, with shuttle buses. Even though it’s still nice to work there. Conditions, at least for photographers are great. We have 3 press centers, one down in Zagreb in main hotel, second one on top of course, and for third one, we have small and “a bit” crowded photo corner just outside of finish area. And on top of that, there’s wi-fi on course. Yes, believe it or not, we can actually send photos straight from course.
Finnish supporters during first run of Zagreb women SL
Finns are one of our best clients, and also one of craziest people you can meet :) I’m married to Finn, so I know this first hand :P They follow their athletes everywhere, no matter if they do good or not so good. And there’s almost always great and funny opportunities to get some cool photos. This time, Santa himself was cheering for Tanja, Sanni and Tiitu. :)
Sandrine Aubert of France skiing in first run of Zagreb SL
Zagreb course has two nice spots, where photographers can stand and get nice photos. Of course there’s one down point with all this… While there’s only 20 to 30 photographers on course normally, Zagreb, and later on Maribor, are exceptions. There’s no real control from FIS side on those two races, and it looks like there’s 100s of photographers on course. Some without any knowledge what they can do and what they can’t. Considering course is icy and steep, it also means sometimes things can be quite dangerous.
Nicole Gius of Italy in second run of Zagreb women SL
On top of that, locals, who come to one race in year, have some weird attitude. There are some rules and “rules” how to behave on course and later on in finish area, medal ceremony and afterall in press center. Most of us regulars on those races know these rules, and we respect them. For example if someone brings his or her backpack to photographers place in finish area, this means he or she has that spot. You don’t fight for that spot, you don’t move bags around, it’s just that you should be there on time, and you have your space.
Winner Maria Riesch of Germany celebrates after Zagreb SL
With locals it’s different. I believe they work for some extremely important local paper in their village, but afterall I really don’t care about this. Most of regulars work for agencies which cover “a bit” bigger area then some local newspaper. Our photos for example go to markets with more then 250 millions of people. But nevertheless it doesn’t matter. If they get perfect spot before me, they will have it. I won’t be fighting for it, I won’t try to move them just that I would get better photo. And I expect same behavior from others.
Lindsey Vonn of USA skiing in first run of Zagreb women slalom
In Austria this is never problem, but then again, things are arranged a bit better in Austria, with Erich Spiess being chief of photographers. And during years, he earned his respect among us, so noone is fighting with him. In Zagreb, chief of photographers is Renco Kosinozic, and he’s really great guy, but I have feeling he is not getting much of respect from locals.
Dalibor Samsal of Croatia skiing in first run of Zagreb men SL
But enough of ranting :) Let’s move forward to Zagreb’s men race. It was held on Tuesday, and it was set as night race. Normally I like night races, since light is really great, and it’s fun to shoot it. Apart from freezing in cold which gets worse during late afternoon. But this time it was really crappy. There was fog on hill all morning, but about 30mins before start, fog lifted and everything looked great. I had great position, and perfect gate to shoot them. Everything would be just great, if fog wouldn’t come back just 5 minutes before start. With slalom race, top skiers start with numbers from 1 to 15, so it was really shitty to get good photos of all the good ones.
Bernard Vajdic of Slovenia skiing in first run of Zagreb SL race
After first 2, I noticed I can’t do anything much on my chosen gate, so I switched long lens to 70-200 and I was shooting closes gate with short 200mm lens. Of course photos don’t look that good anymore, background is cluttered with safety nets, but there wasn’t any other chance, if I wanted to have at least something. But considering everyone had same problems, things worked out quite ok on the end.
But that I won’t be too long, I will leave races in Maribor, Zauchensee, Schladming and Garmisch for later on. :) I hope my next entry in this blog will follow earlier then this one did.
But in meantime, feel free to leave comment to this entry :)
2 responses so far ↓
1 John Wilke // Feb 13, 2009 at 1:03 am
Keep ‘em coming. Post some jumping pictures later this winter !
2 stave // Jun 13, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Love your sport photos! Keep posting!
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