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Arber Day 1…..

Welcome to Bavaria folks. We're north of Munich for this gig and only about 15 clicks from the Czech border for a World Champs tech tuner. Since the big dance is just down the road in Garmisch and the German women's tech team is fast, there's a lot of people hillside for the show. And that is where the good news stops!

You associate the Germans with efficiency and lots of other god things (BMW, passed their factory this morning; being another good thing) yet organizing press centres, forget it! With a World Cup race just prior to the World Championships, there is a heightened amount of interest, not just from the German press but the worlds press and more people have decided to venture to this far flung outpost of the World Cup than would normally. Someone forgot to think about this and create enough space, or even enough warm area……! And then they decided to let anyone into this sanctuary! Result a lot of grumpy old men (Norfolk, you do not have the sole rights to this anymore!) and a few hacked off women as well!

I was talking to a colleague in Garmisch on Thursday about the impending World Championships and he was giving me all the horror stories about things expected to go wrong in Garmisch – I think they are sending all the bad shizzle over to Arber!

And what of the “resort” and I use that word very liberally. I came here about ten years ago with some girls on the GBG Team. It has not changed: It is still windy, foggy and badly organized but the cakes and …… other food is great. Shame that the coffee machine takes about as long as a snail to cross a road to pour a cup of its finest muck out, if that worked maybe I would be warm…..

So Giant Slalom tomorrow. Vonn is expected to race and with Riesch not having capitalized on her non start today, it is all systems go. Riesch lost her red bib in the Slalom so will be wanted to exact some revenge on the slope but then there are a whole heap of other Germans who are still battling it out for World Championship spots so it will not be a walk in the wind….

It is not just the Germans that fight their way up the hill to watch this race, there were a large number of Czechs that came up to support Sarka Zahrabska. While she could not give them a podium place, the World Championship specialist did put up a strong performance to place fifth. Watch out for her in Garmisch.

Well that wraps up today, I am off to find my bed and catch up on the zeds having left home this morning at five…..