Casey Smith Biathlete: Antholz

I don't have much time to write lots now because I am leaving in an hour to drive to Munich, Germany and then fly to Estonia for the European/IBU cup Championships. For the past week I have been training in Antholz Italy at the World Cup. It has been super cool to see how everything works, it is defiantly a much larger scene then I have ever been around and I would like to spend a lot more time here on the World Cup. Here are a bunch of pictures from my week.

Also while traveling from Poland to Italy the IBU followed us to see what it is like for teams to travel to and from races. They chose our team because we have to travel a lot further distances then European team.

Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2VMZ7FkxCI&feature=youtu.be

If it does not work then youtube search: IBU Cup 5: Team USA Life on the Road

Many of the World Cup teams travel with a semi trailer wax room for preparing the skis, here is team Swedens

Norways wax trailer

The train would pass our hotel about 6 times per hour. Not sure where everyone is going but it must be somewhere.

I did some strength one afternoon and was using this log as a squat bar, it probably weighted 50lbs and was pretty effective.

At the venue there is a sky cam to get a full view of everything going on. There is a man with a camera in the little box at the top of the crane, he is probably 300-400 feet off the ground

Along the course with Maddie

The groomer snowcat at Antholz

Maddie racing in the Sprint race

A true mini van we found near our hotel

Some neighbor cows

While here in Antholz I met the Madshus World Cup race rep for the first time

There is an amazing ski you can do above the town of Antholz up the Staller/Stalle pass. It is one of the most beautiful skis I have done. It reminded me of the mountains at home except I was skiing up what is a paved road in the summer and at home there would maybe be a small dusty trail leading to the top.