Diary of a Tournament... Day 4: And So It Begins

Juan on the starting dock, five minutes before skiing.
This guy might just be an exception. And he's done it plenty
of times. 

It is now the fourth day of this trip to Peru. But it is the first day of the tournament. And Day 1 of any big tournament like this one brings with it plenty of anticipation, excitement, and butterflies. Doesn't matter how many times you've done it.

Today's call time was rather pleasant. Wheels up to the site at 8:30. We had a calm breakfast while we looked over our ski schedule for the next two days. The first two days of this tournament are just preliminaries, everyone skis and the top 4-6 skiers in each division advance to the final round. Consequently, the skiing order for the last two days have not been released yet and will not be until everyone finished the preliminaries.

Right now all we're focused on is skiing well enough to make it to the final round. It doesn't matter how well we perform right now, even the top skier heading into the finals can end up finishing last. We're holding back right now, playing it safely, covering up our cards. We don't want to pull out all the stops quite yet, not until it's absolutely necessary. The safest way we can ski today while still assuring a place in the finals is all we need.


Juan will be the first one on the water today and we make sure to get to the site with plenty of time for him to gear up, sit down, and focus. I give him some quick advice and run back to the shoreline where I can get a good view of his passes. He goes out and nails it. I mean nails it. Definitely the way to do it.

Turning sharp at 35' off.

Looking like a player around two ball at 38" off.

Meanwhile, on the other lake, the trick event is moving fast and I've only got a few more skiers before I'm up. It's time to switch gears. I replace my camera with my ski and sprint to the starting dock. I'm sticking in a warmup wherever I can. I get my stuff on and being preparing for the event. I'm feeling good.

I think tricking is different than the other events. The preparation is completely unlike any other. To go out and slalom or jump you can be confident, prepared, and unworried that you'll perform mediocrely. You're almost positive that, if the conditions hold, you'll make it past your first few passes or jump close to your top score. But you can go out to trick and fall on your first trick. Or on the second. Or on the third. Everything has to be nearly flawless. Otherwise the unforgiving water claims you as you blankly stare at the boat as it fades away, uncomprehending why you're not with it.

I begin with my toe pass. Solid. It feels slow and easy. And controlled. I prepare for my second pass. I cut hard for my first flip, too hard. I land in a much better position than I'm used to, and closer to the wake as well. Suddenly I'm cutting at the wake once again. I compensate my closeness to the wake with the wrong movement, not pushing hard enough with my legs. I go up and land straight down, solid on my ski. But I have too much slack and not enough control. The ski quickly grabs at the lake and catches, I disappear just as quickly.

Delfina clowning around after her set.

I can't think about it anymore, I have to focus on my next events and not dwell on my mistake. It happens occasionally, I've just got to roll with the punches and keep moving. I still made it to the finals, which was the intended goal. I did what I had to. I grab my camera again and use it as a distraction to take my mind off my skiing. I mange to catch both Mariak and Santiago go out and ski perfectly, setting new Latinamerican records and pushing their personal bests ever higher.

Mariak killed both of her passes. Completely badass.

I spent the rest of the day catching up on homework and watching everyone go out and post some awesome scores. It's not fun but it has to get done. Halfway through, we all took a break to come together as a team and represent the country we're skiing for. It still amazes me that there are so many people from all over South America who travel here for this tournament. I see people I've met in Colombia, Orlando, Miami, everyone reunited for this event. The amount of talent in this one place astounds me.

Mariak and yours truly, totally rocking out the uniforms.

The entire Colombian team. It's awesome how many of us there
are at this tournament.

Our tickets to eat lunch over the course of the tournament. These are pure gold. 

We each had our own two-person bench on which we could
splay out and relax.

We wrapped everything up at around 6. At dinner by 7:30. We ate at a fairly shady Italian spot all the way in the dark, dusty back of the mall. The place was completely empty. As in, not a single customer. Plenty of waiters though, with nothing to do. There were maybe eighty tables, most of them to fit five or six people, every last one without a single soul. But the food was delicious. Mostly the pre-dinner bread. It was ridiculous, this was ten times better than Olive Garden.

We wrapped up fairly quickly and got back to the house by 9. We all wanted to get to bed as soon as possible, some decent sleep tonight is as good as gold. All of us are skiing again tomorrow to finish off the preliminary round. I'll be slaloming and jumping. Juan might even strap on my skis and go out for a trick. I think we'll have to go over a few passes first because, up until now, he doesn't even have one. Tomorrow is, just as today, all about strategy. Keeping it minimal and quiet. Holding it back. We've got a beautiful call time of 9:30. Hope you can check back in tomorrow.

Until then, thanks for the continued well wishes and good vibes.

And thanks for reading all this.