Sport through the lens

After last entry, post 1 about alpine skiing World Cup, there’s coming sequence number 2 about same subject :)
Winter is time, when we cover mostly skiing, so there’s nothing much to write about something else. Since my last entry, there were few more races on program, and we have been covering races in Maribor, Zauchensee, Garmisch and Tarvisio in between.

First race after Zagreb, came on weekend already, and there were women slalom and giant slalom race in Maribor. I never really liked races in Maribor, and with this years experience, it’s just worse. It’s not organizers fault or anything, but overall it still doesn’t make me much happier :) I noticed, that I can reserve and get decent hotel on other side of the World, but I can’t get normal hotel 150km from my home… in country where they speak same language as I do. I got recommendation from friend, for who I actually think he obviously hates me :) I didn’t bother to check too much, so I just called and reserved room. Afterall we were just going to sleep there and be out all day otherwise. Well even for that, it was really something. That “hotel” is suppose to have 2 stars, but I would say, they have stolen that 2 stars table somewhere and put it on their house. I didn’t even dare to go down to basement, because I have feeling, there would be some corps and 20 illegal Iranian refugees in basement. Not to mention smell coming out of fridge :)

Anja Paerson of Sweden skiing in Maribor women GS race

Of course Andy, Markus and Atle noticed this thing too, so they were taking extra care about our positions. If there are only regulars, we are allowed more, then when there’s 40 others standing around us. So instead of having few more spots, we were all standing on one or two places around the course. Sure it’s fun, because it’s never boring when waiting this way, but then again our photos look like copies of same photo. And that’s something I don’t really like. Of course there’s also another issue with this. On the end we are all photographers, and if someone screw up, we all carry consequences of this action. We are all treated differently because of that, and it’s not really great thing to know this.

Third placed Tanja Poutiainen of Finland reacts

Luckily there weren’t any problems this year, at least not such as last year, when one of locals just walked over finish line straight to finish area, with camera over his shoulder and with umbrella in other hand. That was really something to see. This year we just had a bit of laugh about some of locals, but otherwise everything went fine. But with things like this, lucky strike will end sooner or later, and something bad will happen. I have no idea how things will be done after that, but I’m sure we will all have problems because of this.

Winner Maria Riesch of Germany reacts in finish

After races, or better to say in between races (after first run already) most of us were sending photos. And there’s one of problems which is pretty much standard for Maribor. Every year it’s same, and every year we listen to promises, that next year it’s going to change, and it’s going to be better. With todays technologies and capabilities of Internet, it’s really hard to imagine they are not able to provide at least kinda decent connection in press center. Obviously it’s too hard to understand, we are there to make our job, not to surf web or download some porn :) So we were sending photos with something between 5 and 10kBps. When you have more then one photo to send, you can imagine how fast it goes with such “speed”. So once you consider this, paying 10eur/day on Austrian WC races feels perfectly fine. Especially because for those 10eur you actually get connection, where your upload speed is between 0.5 and 1MBps.

Third placed Tanja Poutiainen of Finland celebrate her medal

But enough of rant… for now :) Let’s move week further, when there was speed weekend in Zauchensee, Austria. Speed weekend in Zauchensee is one of very few speed events I do during skiing season, even though this year there were quite few on my list. Plan for Zauchensee was super combined race on Saturday and Downhill race on Sunday. This was also first race when complete “mafia” would be on same place :) Samo, Giovanni, Samuel and me were all at same place and at same time. And of course this meant we were out for pizza and beer on Friday evening already. Afterall there’s only few races every year, when all of us are there. And all those guys are really great friends, so it’s perfectly normal to grab a beer with them.

Lindsey Vonn of USA skiing in downhill of Zauchenee SC race

Race by itself was nothing special, except that I didn’t shoot training, so I just trusted suggestion from friend and stayed under second jump. When I was skiing down the course of downhill race after the race, I saw it was pretty much only decent choice. Photos were quite nice, and perfect weather helped a bit too :) It was pretty much first race this season, if I don’t count Soelden races, where it wasn’t -15c. Start was around 11am, it was sunny and pretty warm, so there was really nothing to complain about.

Jessica Lindell-Vikarby of Sweden skiing in downhill of Zauchenee SC

After finishing downhill part of super combined race, everything started to be a bit hectic, since there was only about 1.5h to start of slalom race, and in this time, I had to send photos and walk up the course to my position. Considering we have to be on position one hour before start, I had only about 30 minutes to do all this. But press center was just 100m from finish area, Internet access was fast, and on top of that, I found quite nice place under last break on slalom course, so there was just about 200 or 300 meters to walk. And we were all in position way ahead our time.

Third placed Anja Paerson of Sweden celebrates her medal

But then we got cold shower. Slalom course was nothing special, with only one break, so there was only one nice position. When Andy skied down to us, his only words were “Sorry guys but there’s TV camera above, so unfortunately I will have to move you”. Sure we could argue, but result would be same, except that everyone, Andy and we, would be in bad mood.

Photographers during Women SC race

So we packed our stuff and moved down. New position was everything but great, with crappy red safety net in background, but sometimes there’s just no other chance, and we take what we get.

Winner Lindsey Vonn of USA skiing in slalom

Evening after super combined race was once again time for some food and beer or two. Problem with all this is, that we actually get food in press center… at least on most of races, but normally there’s no time at all to get food between the race. After everything is over, and we have time, there’s no food left anymore. But it’s not really all that big deal. There’s always few hungry friends, and since there’s nothing else to do on evenings, it fits just fine.

Winner Dominique Gisin of Switzerland in Women downhill

Sunday was time for downhill race. Same course as on super combined downhill, and once again I was under same jump. Just that with different lens and with a bit different position. From beginning day looked even nicer then Saturday was, and somehow I mixed times a bit, so I was up on course 2 hours before start already. When I came down to position, I had almost one hour time, before inspection would take place. So what to do in sunny weather, perfectly prepared and completely empty ski track next to downhill course, ski ticket in my pocket and with ski lift just 10 meters from there where I was standing? I guess there’s nothing much to think about :) I put my backpack down next to ORF camera guy, clip it to safety net and went skiing :) Yup I got almost one hour of really perfect skiing.

Me before start of Women downhill race

After that, I had to come back for inspection, and hour of waiting. But it was warm, sunny and there was nothing to complain about. Especially if weather would stay like this all day long. But just few minutes before race, clouds started to cover sky, and when race finally started, we had white sky instead of perfect blue sky. I moved a bit different way, so instead of getting white sky as background, I had nice mountains behind jump.

Winner Anja Paerson of Sweden on start of Women downhill

On top of that, I had position for some a bit different photos. They normally don’t get published as regular photos, but they might be used for some features. So sometimes it’s useful to get some a bit different photos, since you never know :)

Tenth placed Tina Maze of Slovenia in downhill

So all in all, speed weekend in Zauchensee, was one of nicest ones this season. There were not all of racers on start, especially no Finns, makes weekend a bit less profitable, but weather was almost perfect, working conditions were great, surrounding around Zauchensee is almost like from fairy tale, and meeting all of friends at same place is another plus point. Another plus point was, that after this weekend, I had 10 days off, so I had some time for actually go skiing myself, and not just shoot skiing ;)

Kaylin Richardson of USA in Women downhill

More about races in Schladming, with traditional snow and/or rain, Garmisch, Tarvisio and Kranjska Gora will obviously come in Part 3 :)

Until then, you can check our photos in our on-line archive, under following sections:

Maribor GS 1st run

Maribor GS 2nd run

Maribor SL 1st run

Maribor SL 2nd run

Altenmarkt/Zauchensee SC downhill

Altenmarkt/Zauchensee SC slalom

Altenmarkt/Zauchensee Downhill