Watching winter sports is easier than participating

It's been a while since the last posting so I thought it was time to update on a couple of things that I've been up to.

After my "heroics" at cross country skiing I decided that it might be easier to watch winter sports rather than participating in them. Thus for a couple of weeks after my efforts I watched the final races of the biathlon World Cup events on TV as well as venturing out to watch some new and interesting sports as well as watching some old favourites in the local area.

Preparing the slalom course
at Kranjska Gora

It started off with a trip to Kranjska Gora to see the penultimate race in the mens slalom World Cup. It was a bit of an early start but I got there about 20 minutes before the start whilst Gemma parked the car. The racing was really good and as it only cost 10 Euros to get in I thought it was well worth it, although Gemma wasn't as keen as me as the day was cold and rainy.

Ivica Kostelic from Croatia won the event but it was mainly due to the French skier, Alexis Pinturault, failing to finish the 2nd run whilst having a comfortable time advantage. Unfortunately the only British skier, David Rydding, failed to finish the 1st run although he did win the overall Europa Cup slalom title the following day.

Gemma watching the Alpen Cup
at Pokljuka on a warm, sunny day

It was also the final weekend of the Alpen Cup, which is the third tier of biathlon (not a breakfast cereal) and is mainly for up and coming biathletes. There was some good racing although I felt sorry for one of the biathletes who missed all of her targets and had to do 10 penalty laps which turned a 6km race into a 7.5km event for her.

An added bonus on the day was that as it was bright and sunny day and I even got Gemma to come along and watch quite a bit of the event.

The BIG hill at Planica

Towards the end of March there was the Ski Flying Final held at Planica, which was an event I had been longing to see ever since we arrived in Slovenia. Ski Flying is a version of ski jumping but whereas ski jumping usually sees people jumping around 95-130 meters ski flying involves the people jumping between 160-240 meters.

I managed to get to see the team event whereby 4 people from each national team make 2 jumps each and the team with the best overall points total wins. On the day I was there 35-40,000 people were there and the majority of them went home happy, as well as slightly drunk!, as Slovenia won the event.

Ice Stock Sport
 European Championships

It was then time for something a bit different and that came in the form of Bled hosting the European IceStocksport Championships. This is a game played across the width of an ice rink (about 30 meters) where players "push" a "stone" across the rink and try to place their "stone" as close to the centre as possible and on other occasions knock targets out of a designated area. It was a bit like watching a cross between curling, bowls and skittles.

What was interesting was to see that not only were the "normal" winter sports countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland taking part but also teams from Brazil, Israel, Guatamala and Kenya.

Watching the skill involved in this sport was a good way to spend the afternoon and I think it could be something that catches on in the UK as it is relatively cheap to buy the "stone" and targets.

I know how this person feels

Just before Easter we went back to the Ice Hall to see the Triglav Trophy. This is a competition held annually in Bled for ice skating. Previous participants had gone on to win Olympic medals.

The competition was of a high standard and I think we may have seen at least one if not two future World and Olympic champions. These being the junior mens winner Alexander Petrov and Taichi Honda from Japan who was the runner-up in the same event. The Brits did quite well in the event coming 3rd and 4th but were quite a way off from winning.

My pharmacist says that I am still not allowed to do anything sporty due to my dodgy knee and so this weekend I am off to watch the 54th Bled Rowing regatta and then a couple of days later the Taekwon-Do European Championships which are being held in Bled. Should be fun as there are usually beer tents at these events and they do say "if you can't join them, then have a beer instead!"