05 April, 2008

International Ski Festival, Yongpyeong Resort Korea, February 15-17

For the second year in a row, we attended Korea's International Ski Festival. Since my school graduation last year prevented me from actually doing any snowboarding, I was excited to be involved in the full weekend of activities this year.

We arrived Friday night to prepare for a day on the slopes Saturday. When we were picking up our lift passes and banquet tickets, I met the Korean girlfriend of another Danish guy, and she told me she had signed up for the women's snowboard race. I thought that was pretty cool and asked her how many women had signed up. To protect my own image, I will not disclose exactly how many participants there actually were, but there were few enough to get me to consider entering the race myself in spite of a two year snowboaring hiatus. She finally convinced me to sign up, and I was issued a bib and race instructions.

Morten and I managed one gondola run before I had to go to the race start point. Though I had issues (to put it mildly) with the second gate due to extreme ice, I completed the rest of the course in good form.

The award ceremony took place at the Saturday night banquet. The Korean girl came in second, and I finished third. We had both decided to race for Denmark to boost their representation, and even though their only placers were American and Korean, they were very excited to have been recognized in the Alpine events. I did not realize, however, that I would be given a certificate on which I was declared as being from Denmark, and I apologize to any of my American family or friends who are offended by this lack of home-country patriotism--it was not a deliberate snub.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Ok, when I made the odd comment on your facebook site about you winning this award, I had absolutely no idea that you had actually participated in a snowboarding competition. Somehow, you failed to mention that. I thought you were just pretending. You, in your slacks and little sweater, didn't exactly look like you had just gotten done competing in an alpine event.

Potato Woman said...

yeah, you must have missed the picture of me on the snowboard going through the gates wearing a number bib. i have no idea why on earth you'd think i would pretend to win an award. how many years have you know me?