TRUCKEE, Calif. — Erik Schlopy knows it's too soon for U.S. Alpine skiers to seek redemption after a disappointing Olympics.
But he hopes the national Alpine championships, starting Friday at the Squaw Valley ski area that played host to the 1960 Olympics, will end the season on a positive note.
The U.S. team, which collected only Bode Miller's two silver medals at the Salt Lake City Games despite high expectations going into an Olympics on home slopes, could use a boost heading into the offseason.
"Of course, the Olympics didn't go the way we wanted them to go," Schlopy said Thursday after posting the fastest time on a super giant slalom run. "I call it the post-Olympic hangover."
Schlopy headed into the season as an Olympic medal contender. But illness wiped out his training in the late summer and fall, and he struggled throughout the World Cup season. At the Olympics, he failed to finish the giant slalom and was 14th in the slalom.
Though he says success in the U.S. championships won't make up for his disappointments at the Olympics, Schlopy sees the season-ending event as a chance to wrap up the 2001-02 campaign on a high note.
He plans to ski in the Super G, giant slalom and slalom in the national championships. On Thursday, he had the fastest time in a FIS Super G, a second-level race in which all but two of the 75 entrants were Americans.
"Redemption will have to wait until next year at the world championships," he said. "The World Cup season is over. We are here to have fun and compete against each other."
Caroline Lalive, also in need of confidence boosts, was fastest in a women's FIS Super G on Wednesday.
Lalive fell in the downhill, the combined and the Super G at the Olympics, making it nine straight races in the Olympics or world championships she has failed to finish.
She won't get a chance to break that streak until the world championships next February in Switzerland, but ended the World Cup season in style by finishing second last week in the year's final downhill.
Some U.S. skiers won't get a boost from the national championships. The downhillers, men and women, had their races canceled Thursday because of soft snow.
And Daron Rahlves, a Truckee resident who was hoping to defend his national title in the downhill, dislocated his right hip Tuesday while skiing with friends.
Rahlves, another U.S. skier who failed to live up to expectations in the Olympics, would have been the favorite here in the Super G — an event in which he is the reigning world champion.
For Miller, the national championships offer a chance to wind down after a long season in which he won four World Cup races and became the first U.S. man with an Olympic medal in the giant slalom and in the combined event.
"Physically, I'm not that tired. I'm really worn out emotionally and mentally," he said Thursday after competing in the FIS race. "After this, I'm going on vacation."