That's Ski Racing!

Tuesday: Super G race
• 6am: Load minibus with people, skis, wheelchairs. Ride minibus up, listening to some tunes and getting excited about racing my favourite discipline.
• 7am: unload in the rain. Told to wait ‘Race is on hold!’
• 8am: message to wait until next announcement at 10am (still feeling positive and excited about the prospect of racing although the rain doesn’t look pleasant).
• 10am: told to wait until 12 (the rain eventually stops).
• 12am: Inspect the course, it looks nice, the snow has held up really well and is perfect for me, hard packed but not icy. Feeling positive about racing.
• Race ‘On hold’ for a few more hours, then told to go to start. The weather has improved. Forerunners run the course.
• ‘Race postponed until tomorrow’. It turns out the timing gear was run over by groomers and is not working.

Wednesday: Super G race, take 2
• Load bus, get up hill in rain. Rain stops, racers warm up.
• Race on hold, safety netting has blown off course.
• Chairlift stops due to high winds but the race organisers are doing everything they can to make the race happen so we take another chairlift then get dragged by skidoo to the start for course inspection (its now an ice rink).
• The able-bodied guys do their race, and make the steep icy section look difficult.
• We get dragged up to the start again to wait for another hour, the safety netting gets blown off the track again and the organisers call it a day.

No Super G race for team GB in NZ. Really frustrating but that’s ski racing.

Pre-race training at Queenstown

Monday:
5am start, 6am load bus. Skiing Coronet Peak for sunrise on 2m speed skis. We skied straight down the race hill at 20s intervals with other disabled and able-bodied (AB) racers. Good practise to experience the course and be surprised by a little air (flying). There’s lots of terrain on this course and a tricky steep section but I know I can do it.

Then I did more super G turns with the Winter Park Team who I trained with last season, before the lifts opened to the public at 9am (it’s unsafe to train at speed with the public). I am feeling really positive about my speed skiing and ready to race!

Slalom and adrenaline training!

Excellent slalom training last week at Mt Dobson and my summer training in UK snowdomes has paid off. Dobson is the only mountain I've ever skied at without any permanent buildings, just a caravan, container selling lift tickets, mini cafe and drop toilets (no flush necessary)! The skiing however was well worth the minimalist amenities. We had mostly sunny weather, just one snowy day followed by powder 'training'.

After a beautiful drive through the Mackenzie country, we are now in Queenstown where we started the NZ Winter Games with some adrenaline training today, swinging off a 60m rope swing into a dramatic river gorge!

The plan is: race training Monday, then racing Super G Tuesday, Giant Slalom Friday and Slalom Saturday. Bring it on!

TRAINING IN NZ

The British Disabled A, B and Development Teams arrived in New Zealand two weeks ago, for some excellent training. Mt Hutt has some good steeps for gates training. Last week we focussed on Giant Slalom and got a few runs in on speed skis. We've been doing early starts - on the lift at 7:30am, which means 5am rise, so lots of early nights and beautiful sunrises. Unfortunately its turned windy and the mountain’s been renamed ‘Mt SHutt’ for the last couple of days.

We move onto Coach’s home mountain, Mt Dobson on Saturday to train Slalom for a week followed by the NZ Winter Games for which we’ll be based in Queenstown.

This country is beautiful, my wonderful cousin Rob’s been putting me up, helping out with the team and adapting, fiberglassing and fixing my monoski which all seem pretty successful. Thanks cuz, you’re a superstar!

Coach is pleased with my skiing progress. It’s all going well!