Heavenly Team Rider, Sho Kashima, Checks In

I just got home from La Plagne, France a couple nights ago. I’m still
getting over this jet lag! I’m home in Park City until Monday, then I get
to experience jet lag again because we’re heading out to Inawashiro, Japan.
I was pretty happy with the way I skiied last week. I ended up getting 4th
place in Moguls out there. It was pretty exciting … I was the 6th person to
go in the finals, and I came down with a pretty good run. I was in the
zone, and I couldn’t really remember what happened in my run! My score came
out, and it put me in 2nd place behind Dale Begg-Smith. We were sitting 1st
and 2nd until the last two skiers were up. The top 3 skiers at that point
stand in the podium area until they get knocked out of podium contention.
It was good being able to talk to him for a good 15 minutes. The last two
skiers were Sami Mustonen (who finished 1st) and Alexandre Bilodeau (who
finished 2nd). I know 4th place is good, but I was kind of heartbroken
because I thought I had a shot at getting my first podium. But this will
keep me hungry to ski even harder in the last leg of the season. The top 5
runs from every World Cup can be seen on www.skidebosses.com. It is a
French website, but it is pretty easy to understand.

I recently found out that I skiied well enough all season to earn a spot to
World Championships! World Championships is very similar to the Olympics.
The process to earn starts there is exactly the same, the only difference is
that World Championships is every two years instead of four. I still have
to keep the same focus I’ve had all year, this last leg in the season is
pretty tough. There are four World Cup events, two World Championship
events, and two National Championship events in the next 6 weeks. I will be
really busy travelling, but I will try to find time to come back to Tahoe to
do a few things, I miss all of the people and the town itself! It looks
like you are getting a storm in Tahoe, I hope it’s a good one!
Thanks again for reading my blog, and take care!

-Sho