Usa !

[Rainbow83]

Yeah, I did end up going, stayed with a college buddy on his dorm room floor and bummed a ride in the campus vans the ski team borrowed to get to the races, haha. It was absolutely fantastic. The atmosphere was totally electric, especially on the second day. It was wild to see Gus pull off his first world cup win (and the first men's world cup win in many years). I can't overstate how excited and enthusiastic the crowd was, and you could really tell the athletes were feeding off that too. They'd ski their warmup laps waving to and high-fiving everyone along the course, it was awesome. It was incredible. Also, the course was open to the public on Monday, and man, it was unbelievable how easy those world cup skiers made it look. I mean, we saw them easily V2 skating and planting their poles so hard they were hopping off the snow a little bit while they skied these massive hills that we were fighting for our lives to get up. And the downhills were just as insane. I mean the sort of stuff where you're trying to step through a corner and your edges simply start sliding, which is ridiculous to be slipping when you're only trying to step and not skid or plow, even on skinny XC skis. Anyway, the races were fantastic, the Loppet Foundation and Theodore Worth Park did an amazing job of putting on an incredible event with a great venue, the athletes were amazing, and overall it was the best sporting event I've ever been to. If there's more like it in the future in the US (and hopefully there will be) it is definitely a cool thing to go to.