Monday 2/13

On Monday we woke up early and took the 7:10 train from Torino to Bardonecchia, the small town in the Alps where the skiing and snowboarding events were being held. After about an hour train ride, we arrived in Bardonecchia where it was a lot colder. We had some problems getting our tickets but we ended up with decent seats for the Women's snowboarding halfpipe that day.
The event was great. In the morning, there was a 2 hour qualification session that limited the field of 36 participants down to 12. It was obvious very early that the US was the team to beat, as they were clearly superior to most of the other contestants. Later that afternoon, the top 12 from the morning session each had two runs down the halfpipe to score points with the judges. The US competition came mainly from a Norwegian boarder, and a couple of the Japanese entrants. At the end of the day, the US came out 1-2, but the Norwegian took the bronze to preven the US sweep.
We took the train back to Torino, and got a bite to eat before we took the train back to Milan, where we were staying that night.