Chris Klug, a 29-year-old on the U.S. ski and snowboard team based at Park City, Utah, is sharing a bi-weekly diary on his preparations for the Olympics.

I have had a really good couple of days of training here in Ischgl, Austria. We had a World Cup competition planned in Kaprun last weekend, which was Thanksgiving weekend, but the weather was so bad it was canceled. They got so much snow and it was so windy. The past two weeks we've been in Europe, we have yet to race.

CHRIS KLUG

Klug Birthdate: Nov. 18, 1972 Hometown: Aspen, Colo. Sport: Snowboarding -- slalom Accomplishments: The 2001 U.S. national champion, he was the first rider selected for the 1998 U.S. Olympic snowboard team. He placed sixth in the giant slalom in Nagano. Personal: Diagnosed with the same rare liver disease that killed NFL's Walter Payton, Primary Schlerosing Cholangitis, he waited seven years to receive a liver transplant. In July 2000, he underwent transplant surgery and in December was back on the podium at World Cup-Canada. In January, he won his first World Cup victory since the transplant -- the parallel giant slalom race in Italy. When he's not snowboarding, he likes to surf, mountain bike, skateboard and play tennis. People wonder how he can be so active after his transplant. "Sometimes people think I'm nuts," he said. "I've got a brand new liver, so it's not any different than anyone else going out and doing it. I'm certainly grateful."

I'm super fired up to race tomorrow in the World Cup slalom. There are two parallel giant slaloms on Saturday and Sunday. One is the makeup race for Kaprun.

I was bummed that race didn't happen. We have an awesome team, and we always find a way to have fun. Kaprun got at least 2 feet of snow in two days. We played ultimate Frisbee against the Swedish team in about a foot of snow. That was hysterical.

We tried to go car-access back-country snowboarding the next day, but the snow got really wet. We had fun trying to drive the car to the top of the mountain, though.

Two days ago, as we traveled from Kaprun to Iscgl, half of our team went to Tivoli, which is next to the Olympic Hall in Innsbruck. There's a gym there with a couple of climbing walls that are 60 to 70 feet high. I was in heaven. I'm not a strong climber, but it was so much fun.

Both of my coaches and some of my teammates are experienced climbers and showed me the ropes. The first time it was so high, I climbed back down. The second time I went up it was so high, I looked like a cat on a roof. I was like, "Oh, God." I wanted to climb back down, but they made me repel. I was a bit freaked though. It was a bit high. I've climbed outdoors a bit, but it looked wacky inside.

The gym has a cafe that is mid-level. On another climb, I was next to the rail and I put my right leg over and got off at the cafe. I said this is enough.

There's not much snow here in Ischgl. Lots of rocks. We've all been destroying boards right and left, but we've had great training. I've been working out a new board.

My dad Fed Ex'd a new giant slalom board to me. He and my family wrote messages on the outside of the box. Then my friend Scott who works at Fed Ex in Aspen, also signed it. So when I picked it up, all of the Fed Ex guys who had delivered it along the way had signed it and written messages of good luck.

The hotel we're staying at here is great. It has pingpong and Foosball tables downstairs. Tonight we're having a pingpong tournament. I love it. I'm not very good. Some of our players on the tour are assassins.

I've got kind of late start Friday in the competition. I'm going to try and do an attack from the back and hopefully make the finals.

On Saturday and Sunday are the parallel giant slalom races. I just got that new board and had two sick days of training on it, so I'm hoping to make a couple of trips to the podium. Then it's back to North America on Monday, when we head to Whistler, Canada.