Austrian Sporting Events

Real short, I feel real good about February, I have finally finished purchasing all of my transportation connections.

I'll post later exactly where I am going to be and when.

Friday afternoon, Mariel tells me that there is an Innsbruck CouchSurfing meeting that we could go to. CouchSurfing is a social networking website that we just joined where you can connect with people in other cities and stay with them (i.e. surf their couch) for free. It sounds sketchy but they have pretty decent ways of checking up on people. I am planning on trying this out in Portugal so I thought it would be fun to check out this meeting. Well we arrive and apparenly it was an Innsbruck ExPat (Ex-Patriots) club group that some lady advertized on the CouchSurfing site. We didnt really quite read the invite right. It was not quite what I was expecting, but we were kind of socially obligated to stay and talk to some other fellow Americans/Italians/Irish/Australians. It was quite a unique group of people from folk songwriters to freelance band photographers and the whole time I kept asking myself how the heck I got myself into this crazy situation. They were unbelievably nice and they kept talking about meeting up in the future for parties and such but if I didn't have: 13 other native speakers from ND to be friends with, an obligation to leave the country in 5 months, a Gastfamilie, a decent grasp of the German Language, and a life, I may consider to spend more time with these people.

Today, Saturday, Mariel and I awoke before the sun to drag ourselves to the train station and go to Kitzbühel to see the world famous Hahnekamm Ski World Cup race. Kitzbühel is essentually where I was all of Christmas break and it was awesome to see this race on the mountain I had been skiing on just a month ago.

As a side note, on the way there, we had a layover in the small town of Woergl, and on a whim (and since I am terrified of the IBK train station ticket office and the beast that roams there) I decided to try to get another Interrail pass for my February travels. And I tried to keep my cool amongst my excitement when I was able to get it no problem.

Anyways, this event is probably Austria's biggest sporting event of the year. Austria really has nothing going for it with sports other than skiing. Their Fußball team is horrible and only reason why they are playing in the world championship this summer is because there will be a few games in Innsbruck. This event (the Saturday race) is the worlds longest and most difficult downhill ski run. There is a point where there is an 85% grade and even the snow grooming machines can't make it up so they call in the Austrian army early in the morning to march around and pack down the snow. In living here for the past 5 months, it seems that the Austrian army's most important jobs include cleaning up the Pope-trash in Vienna, parading in order to groom snow, and wearing red berets.

After sitting on an hour train ride packed with people and watching all the Austrians down beer and schnapps all before 10am, and making friends with an Australian snowboarder named Luke living/bartending in London for the year, we finally arrived and joined the mayhem. Austrians were running around everywhere, waving the flag, blowing airhorns, ect. I all thought that they had lipstick kiss marks on their faces but on closer look, it was just the red, white, red stripes of the Austrian flag painted on their cheeks. Mariel and I made our way up to the end of the run to stake out a spot for the race in two hours. As we slipped and slid in the snow our way to the stadium/holding area for people, the stumble drunk Austrians were easily passing us with their geneticly inherited Tirolean snow-legs. We found a good spot between the finish line and where the skiiers stop and celebrate about two hours before the race and made an Austrian friend who was telling us all about the sport and the racers (very helpful since mariel and I were fairly lost). The event itself was extremely similar to any other sporting event, including a pregame show with parachuters, hang gliders, cameramen amonst the crowd, and cheerleaders "the Alpine Angels," commercial breaks between races, and music to pump up the crowd (their 'Jock Jams' are a pleasant blend of polka and yodeling). The race was suprisingly exciting, we could watch the racers on a big screen then see them come around the corner at the top of the mountain and watch them finish the last fourth of the course as they raced against the best time. The only racer I knew was Bode Miller who the Austrians all love but the Americans all hate which which resulted in a confusing number of American flags in the crowd (carried by Austrian Bode supporters).

Unfortunately we witnessed a really bad fall. Scott McCartney, the first American skiier, and second of the day, wiped out really bad right at the end of the race resulting in them stopping the race for a half hour as they airlifted him out. It was really disturbing. As he was coming down, the announcer announced that it was his birthday today and before he finished, he got the entire crowd to start singing "Happy Birthday to you" as he came close. He got a little too much air from a ledge and lost control (it seemed as if he was distracted from the singing) and well you can see the rest here:



He stopped sliding right in front of where we were standing and the whole crowd went silent as he started convulsing with shock. I was almost sure he was dead or paralyzed but apparently it was just severe head trauma. He is doing alright now at the Innsbruck Clinic. Some birthday...

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/skiing/news/story?id=3204103


It was kind of a buzz-kill for the crowd but they livened up after they announced he was conscious, and the energy returned.

After the race, we decided we were exhausted after getting up so early and standing all day and decided to head back rather than wait for the fireworks display that evening. Before heading back to Innsbruck, Mariel and I walked around the city to check out the party of wasted Austrians dancing around and belting the words to "I'm Walking on Sunshine." And then we joined the crowd as we tried to set the Guinness record for how many drunk Austrians we could fit on the train in the short 50 min ride back to Innsbruck.