Day 1 in Portillo: Just finished our first day on the slopes. The skiing is fantastic. There is plenty of snow and the forecast looks good for the first 4 days. Today we free skied GS and super-G and will be moving into GS and SG gates for the next two days. We plan on skiing at least 4 days before taking a day off and might do 5 if the weather stays cold. There is a warm front coming so we are trying to make the most of the first week. The Americans are here and will be training DH right next to us on the same slope. They have a fairly large group (14 guys) so there will be limited possibilities of jumping in with their crew. If all goes well, we will attempt to take over their course a couple of times over the next two weeks. The accommodations here are awesome! Internet in the rooms, gourmet meals, and a very nice gym (12 bikes, squat rack, and full court for soccer/basketball). The boys are into full-blown movie making mode so we should have some feature films out shortly (only when there is time after studying). ~ Dykster (Brandon Dyksterhouse)
Day 2 in Portillo: We had a great 2nd day skiing here in Portillo. We did 6 runs full-legth GS followed by 5 super-G runs. The conditions are absolutely ideal. Cold clear nights = rock hard perfection during the day. We are on for the same plan tomorrow and will hopefully build a jump this afternoon with the cat driver so the boys can get some flight time. Yesterday afternoon we managed to get in two volleyball games followed by filet mignon for dinner. Life is fantastic in Chile – THANKS BRUCE! Yesterday was the National Day in Chile and we suspect that the lift operators were out past their bedtimes as we were delayed 20 minutes this morning. ~ Dykster
Day 3 in Portillo: Another great day here in South America. I will keep this short as it is almost dinnertime. Started off the day with 4 timed GS runs: 24-25 meters, 36 gates, very hard aggressive snow! Here are the results:
Tyler Werry – 48.87; 48.25; 48.16; 47.58
Ford Swette – 50.36; 49.25; 47.82; 47.97
Broderick Thompson – 49.29; 49.3; 49.33; 48.78;
Brodie Seger – 51.21 DNF 49.23 49.48
Roger Carry – 50.21 49.11 49.01 48.67
Chris Frank – 48.93 48.15 47.42 46.52
Followed it up with 6 full-length super-G runs. We started three gates up the Roca Jack (see picture below) to add a little more speed to the equation. To say that the boys are in heaven is an understatement. Brodie (Seger) has had a "permagrin" on his face for the past three days. Tomorrow we are changing up the schedule with slalom in the morning followed by jump training. The mountain has been extremely accommodating building us an entry-level jump before we move into downhill training later in the week. It has been great to have Ben (MacLean) back with the squad. He just completed 4 days of skiing with little to no pain in his rebuilt knee. The last two days we did some brush slalom and by the looks of it he is ready to progress into paneled SL after a day off tomorrow. For afternoon entertainment we have a 4pm showing of the 1966 World Championships held in Portillo where Jean Claude Killy won his first Gold medals. ~ Dykster
