Well, I am finally back and at my ‘first’ World Cup after the year of hell last season. I am very grateful this was the first track of the year because it was the site of the only World Cup I did last year and I felt a bit more comfortable here than I might have at other tracks. Training went quite well with the first 2 days yielding some very good information and video feedback – thanks to Kelly, Kirsten, Willy, and Boris for standing out in the cold and wet for so many long hours! On the final day of training I had a solid game plan and made 2 more runs filled with good learning and some ‘final lines’ which I hoped to replicate on race day. I was having a lot of trouble with curve 5 this week and managed to fix that problem for race day. Unfortunately because I was suddenly doing 5 better, I began to mess up 6….. It was a bit frustrating as I think that had I done one more training run I might have figured it out. Ah well, that is the game I play – 6 runs and then race – ready or not! The race went very well on run one – very solid push – 5.22 vs. Jon’s 5.11 (equal to me doing about a 5.12 in Calgary which would be close to a PB) and a solid run with almost no mistakes except my smash hit out of 6. I sat in 6th place after the first run a tenth out of 4th and 2 tenths ahead of 8th. Jon and I were in a close race with only .05s between us! Paul did very well out of his 21st start number and moved up to 10th – a minor miracle in Winterberg where there is a distinct advantage to starting closer to the top of the order. Jon was off just ahead of me and slid into a 3 way tie with the 2 sliders who had started ahead of him! This was the first time I have ever been witness to a 3 way tie in skeleton and it just had to happen right before I went! Effectively that meant that if I was .01s too slow that I could fall from 6th to 10th! No pressure…. Run 2 came and I did not start as well as I wanted – I made a mistake with my warm-up and was ready too early so my energy peaked too early and was ebbing as I hit the line. I did not have as good a second run – the hit out of 6 was not as hard and cost less and I was not as clean out of curve 9 – but I fought hard thru the bottom 4 corners and really maximized my speed as much as I could right through the line and ended up holding my spot at the very least. I knew I was in trouble from here on and my chances of moving up were slim as first it was Gregor Stahli and then it was a German on his home track….. Gregor had a very good run and held his spot moving .23 ahead of me (we were only .01 apart on the first run). Then the German made a mistake at the top and I had a chance….. He ended up losing 2 spots and moved behind me which put me into 5th! Over-all it was a very good day for me to‘re-enter’ into the world cup scene and finish 5th at a track where push is half the game.

Off to Altenberg!!

Europe and Jet Lag…….

The flight from Montreal to Frankfurt was quite good over-all and we arrived in Frankfurt as planned at 8am. The car rental process was the best ever and we were off and driving by 10am. We traveled 2 ½ hours to Nuremberg and the Adidas factory / campus. It is so no nice this year to go directly to the factory and have our suits fitted and sewn directly by the people at Adidas. Normally it is me and my sewing machine for a few hours while I adjust the fit of the suit. I think the patterns are all based on Bobsledder bodies – to get the right length of suit I have to deal with way to much over-all volume of the suit. So, I end up re-sewing every seam just to get a god fit. Ah well, the price of speed…. J. The bag of clothing and outerwear we received from Adidas was very generous as usual and I am very grateful for their support. It is quite something to be given an entire duffel bag full of free apparel. No Red in our jackets, but if that’s the only whiny complaint I can muster then it must be pretty good.

We spent 2 days at the factory and area shopping and resting. Oh, there was also the water sliding……. The staff decided to close the slide 15 minutes early because of our ‘enthusiasm’ but what do you expect when there is a slide with a timer for time trials and a group of speed junkies!? We had a blast to say the least – tube rides, mass start races, time trials, 6 person chains, and a lot of laughs. Probably the most fun I have had on tour for 10 years.

Now it is 4 days in Baden Baden recovering and training at the mineral baths and then off to Winterberg on Monday for training on Tuesday. Then it all begins……

Concrete and runners do not mix…..

Did I slide well enough to win the race? Probably not, but the time on my first run of the 3rd selection race was definitely affected by the runner damage I incurred somewhere between corner 9 and 12. My line out of corner 10 was rally nice and the transition from 11-12-13 was as good as I expected – so where did that .3 or .4 seconds go…..? The only explanation I can come up with is runner damage. My right runner was severely damaged and took a furious 10 minutes of sanding after the run just to make it safe to use on the next run (safe – not necessarily fast). Anyway, no excuses, I slide well enough to be 2nd or 3rd but ended up 4th and that result was enough to be 1st over-all in the team selection process. I am very happy with what I learned in Placid at this race and it will certainly help me compete better come February’s World Championships. Still a few corners to work on, but several key areas were cleared up for me this week. Now it is off to Germany for the next 3 weeks – rest and recovery week, Winterberg race #1 on Nov. 28th, and Altenberg race #2 Dec. 5th. Looking forward to kicking some ass……. Here come the Pain Train.

After the crash, bash, and pressure of Whistler it was nice to come back to Calgary and glide down a track I am very familiar with. The energy in the start house was noticeably different and much more relaxed – a nice change! The weather in Calgary was also very nice and it was not only t-shirts for warm-up but shorts too! Not the best for track conditions, but I’m not going to complain after the Spring of cold and rain we had in Calgary. I was lucky enough to not hit any of the concrete patches in the track so my runners survived relatively unscathed – Keith Loach was not as fortunate. Each slider was allowed 12 runs and with the track sliding easier than it has in years I knew it was going to be a close race with that many training runs for such good sliders such as my team mates. And I wasn’t wrong. The track crew did a great job with the ice and we broke into the 56’s (we have only achieved a few 57’s during training). Paul and I were separated by only 1/100th of a second after the first run with Jon close behind about 2/10ths back. That meant it was essentially a one run race. I went before Paul as he ‘had the lead’ so I knew I had to lay down a great run. Half way down I thought I had lost it – a tiny bit late to curve 8 and a small skid out of Kreissel, I thought that was going to be the difference. I tucked in and tried to maximize my bottom portion of the track and squeeze out every 1/100th I could. It was just enough – I beat Paul by 5/100ths of a second on the run and won by a blink of an eye. Jon had a great 2nd run and Paul, Jon, and I were within a few hundredths of each other, but Jon’s first run cost him and he ended up 3rd.

So, with 2 first place finishes in the first 2 selection races I am mathematically on the World Cup team (I cannot finish worse than 3rd in the selection series even if I come last in the Lake Placid race). I struggled up the hill all last year, but I think I am cresting the hill and the Pain train is gathering steam – it’s nice to be back!