A Weekend Tailor Made For This Alpine Skiing Fan.

Saturday and Sunday filled to the brim.

It can be rather stressful to organize my morning to be ready in time to see the first heat of the races. Yesterday I managed to still go by foot ( yes, it felt like I walked a hundred miles barefoot in the snow! ) to the Doc to get Bob's eye drops etc. Saturday they only open between 7 a.m and 9 a.m and I made it with ten minutes to spare. Gosh, you should have seen me motor...

I was treated to two lots of downhill races. Women and men downhill. When you consider that these gladiators of the snow careen downhill at speeds of over 100 kph, on icy pistes with waxed skis, one tends to question why they don't get the millions that are paid to soccer players. The only thing dangerous about the game of soccer is if a player is crushed by a group hug which always morphs into a rugby tackle of sorts.

Bob secretly loves watching the skiing but is usually quite scathing towards my favourite and will make silly comments until his Anna starts a race. This year, unfortunately Anna has injured herself before the season started and is out for the duration of it. Not such an insurmountable problem for Bob...he has found a different skier to support. An Austrian naturally

This morning the schedule has moved forward and the races start at 9.15 am and it is often a nail biting affair as the difference between first and second is usually just a blink of an eye. Milliseconds.

One of the all time great skiers on the circuit at the moment is Lindsey Vonn. She is breaking records and winning races. A few years ago she had such an horrendous fall that it kept her out of the sport for over a year. Yet, she is back and with aplomb. Luckily for the sport of skiing, she went out with Tiger Woods for a few years. I say luckily, because it made more folks start to be aware of this amazing sport. Aware and also watching it. If you can, take a look at these clips. Stunning and scary at the same time.

Biggi