Park City, Lake Placid, and Torino
World Cup Races 1-3, 2009-10
After a long three weeks in Whistler training and racing in team selections followed by a week in Calgary doing the same, it was finally time for the World Cup season to begin. The first race was in Park City and for me it was a great place to begin the season. Park City is one of my favourite tracks as I really slide well there and I love how fast it all happens there. The track is only 50 seconds long – the shortest on tour – and there are no straight-a-ways longer than 15m until the exit of corner 14 and there are only 15 corners! The curves come fast and furious but there is still a great flow to the track. Last year I finished both the World Cups in Park City in sixth place and I was hoping to improve a bit this year. As it turns out 6th seems to be my lot in Park City! I was sitting 9th after the first run and this was the cause of a lot of stress – I only needed one more Olympic qualifier and had to stay in the top 10 to achieve this requirement. So, I had to fight the fear and handle the stress and get it done. My second run was very good, but more importantly my second push was even better than my first. The track was slowing so I needed to push better to get my result and I did. With the track being so short ties are commonplace and this year, like last year for me, was no exception – I tied for 6th again. It was a huge relief to get my final Olympic qualifier out of the way so early in the season and now I could focus on really honing my equipment, start, and sliding feel without the added strain of ‘chasing a result’.
From Park City we moved across the USA and began preparation for the next World Cup in Lake Placid, NY. Lake Placid has not been my best track which is somewhat surprising as it is known to be a bit more o a ‘drivers track’ and this is usually where I excel. The added bonus for this week was that Aly and the kids came out for the last half of the week. Lake Placid is not their favourite place to visit as the shoulder season weather does not offer much for the kids to do. They managed to get by swimming in the hotel pool and with a visit to the local bowling alley. Back on the track I was having my usual ups and downs but made a bit of headway in learning both the track and my new sled. My Schneider sled has a different turning point than my Davenport sled so it is a huge learning curve at the moment adjusting my patterns after 14 years on the Davenport. Race day came I was flat as a pancake…. My push was awful and my driving only average at best. Put those two elements together in the most competitive field I have ever slid in and I ended up in 13th place. My worst finish in 7 or eight years. With my mantra of the year being to make sure I fully enjoy each and every moment of this privileged life I am leading, I gave thanks for the learning of the week, but have to honestly say I will not miss Lake Placid!
The Placid race was on Friday and that gave the family and me the opportunity to drive up to Montreal for the weekend. We left mid-morning Saturday and arrived at the Montreal science Centre at around 3:30. We really enjoyed the hour and a half we had there and have proven (with the help of an infra-red camera) that Aly’s nose is indeed always cold! We were very grateful to stay at the Parson’s house in the beautiful neighbourhood of Westmount. They are part of my support group B2Ten and we cannot thank them enough for having us stay over for the two nights. Sunday we were off to the Bio-dome and then some toy shopping. All in all a great family day. I dropped Aly and the kids off at the airport Monday morning and then went back into Montreal to see one of my trainers and get some therapy. At 5pm that night I then flew to Munich.
We spent the first 2 days in Munich as we needed to visit the Adidas factory to pick up our team gear and there is also a fantastic indoor water park and spa right near the airport. We discovered last year that a great way to get over or manage jet lag is to go water sliding! Go figure – a bunch of Skeleton sliders having a blast on a huge water park? Seems out of character, but we made the most of it. The morning of the third day in Germany we began our 10 hour drive to the Torino track. It was long but uneventful – if I could just convince my team mates to not spend 25 minutes at the gas station stops….
We arrived at the Torino track 4 days before the official training began so this allowed us to get in some extra runs. I had forgotten how much I liked this track as last season we had our race cancelled due to the 2m of snow that fell in 48 hours last December. The track has a really nice flow to it once you find it, but the finding is a bit difficult. I was back into the flow after the first couple of days and headed into the official training period with a solid game plan. Race day came and after the first run it was like déjà-vu all over again…. I pushed exactly the same as at the Olympics in 2006 and I was behind the leader, my team mate Jon, by almost exactly the same amount as at the games! I guess this was my opportunity to have a ‘do-over’ – except without the crash in curve 18 this time….. My first run had been stellar and I was hoping for a solid follow-up performance. I accomplished it all the way to curve 11 and then got 1” too close to the left wall. It kicked me over too fast and I just touched the right wall right before curve 14. Now I had to work very hard to save the run (late into 14 = land on back if not handled properly….), I did a good job of it and the rest of the run went smoothly. Unfortunately, due to my late entry into 14 all my speed had disappeared and in the place where I usually make up time at the bottom of the track I now had the same splits as everyone else. This meant that I ended up losing one spot and in 4th – .04s out of second. Regardless of my corner 14 problem, the best I could have done was 2nd as Jon pushed great and drove great, he deserved the win to be sure. Canadian men had one of the best days in our history placing 1,3,4. Almost as good as the games!
As I type this I am half way between Torino and Winterberg (nicknamed ‘Rainy-berg’) and the beginning of the next world cup week awaits!