10th place – not good enough. However, an Olympic qualifier so a small silver lining to the bad form, poor driving, and general bad day. The training went quite well all week with my usual problems in corner 4 and some small differences to the track which I thought I had overcome going into race day. In the first run I pushed quite well – the same as last year’s World Championships – and had a very solid run going right to corner 7. Corner 7! I haven’t had a problem there in all my years of sliding here at Altenberg! Aarg! All week my steering had put me nicely into 8, but come race day something changed – either me or a small change in the track – and I ended up late to 8. That means no speed carry through 8 to 9 and the all important Kreissel. Then a very costly mistake in 14 – hitting L and R out of 14 to 15 cost me .3s and I found myself well back in 11th place .7 out of first. Not at all what I had in mind – especially since I had actually done corner 4 quite well!
Run 2 came and the man in front of me, Alexandre Tretiakov, had a great run and I knew I had to be much better on this run. Alex has the huge advantage of starting a full .35s faster than me (he is by far the fastest starter in he world) so I have to be on y game to catch him by the finish. I almost did it. He posted a 59.80 and I was 59.95. That moved him ahead of me and put me ‘unofficially’ in 12th spot. Now I had to pray the guys behind me would make some mistakes. I got very lucky and the next 2 guys made enough to move me back into 11th and then into 10th and that all important Olympic qualifying position. Unfortunately, one of the guys was Jon my team mate so that too was biter sweet. It turned out that I had the 4th fastest time of the heat and was only beat by 2 Germans and Martin Dukurs (who held the lead after the first run but fell back to 2nd place by a slim margin). So, another ‘what could have been’ race and some lessons to be examined for next week and next year when we are back in Altenberg racing before Christmas.
Next race is Igles, Austria – in my opinion it is the ‘hardest’ track in the world – mistakes there cost more than anywhere else. I love the challenge of Igles because you really have to be almost perfect to win there.