Schladming Day 2: Men's Downhill

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Saturday February 9^th

The Men’s Downhill was today, and being a big event on a Saturday the place was packed. They started with an aerial show. Aside from the helicopter used to arrange the stage and decorations, a commercial airplane flew over first. Then an Austrian fighter jet blasted over. I managed to take a couple photos and a video so you can get a feel of how loud that jet was. The event kicked off and there was no racer who stayed in first longer than a few minutes. A Norwegian man – Aksel Svindal – followed by an Italian man – Domonik Paris – and lastly a French man – Daivid Poisson. We watched the top 30 racers (the expected winners) then went back to the VIP lounge for lunch. The food was good and it was nice to get out of the cold. We said farewell to Martina’s aunt then went back to watch a little more of the race. The women’s training came next and we watched a few practice runs. I went to go to the bank and pay for my RYE Hoodie (payment was due the next day), but the bank was closed. We rendezvoused back at the hotel to chill. We went back out for the awards again and we could barely move the crowd was so thick. Being a little late we tried pushing in to get a good view, but it was not working and one of the guys pushing behind me almost started a fight with an fan annoyed at us pushing him. We got out of there and went back a ways. I managed to get a shot of the winners holding my camera way above my head. A famous Austrian skier was signing stuff at the ORF building at our backs so Morti tried to get an autograph. The winners were shuffled into the ORF building through the way to our hotel, so we were stopped by security for a minute before being allowed through. For dinner we found a Gasthaus and got a Wienerschnitzel. Every restaurant was packed so a single half sized and chewy piece of Schnitzel was 11 EUR... The market was nice to check out a second time but we went home early.