My helmet has arrived!

I received my Orb helmet from Uvex the other day, and I must say it is very nice; it makes my old helmet look rather battered, beaten, scratched and unsafe. It is a significant sponsorship as it is my first overseas sponsor, and hopefully the first of many. I have also managed to pick up a motorcycle visor for $5 that will fit perfectly. Still no good news as far as funding goes, I have lots of replies from people who wish me luck but unfortunately none of them can sponsor me. I approached 5 more companies today, so hopefully I will hear back from them soon.

If any one has any suggestions please email me lou@nzskeletonracer.com or call +64 21 158 0728.

The day I didnt pay for my air tickets...

Well, today is the 18th, I am supposed to pay for my air tickets today, but I wont be, I will need to re schedule and hopefully fly out at a latter date. Even though I have got the funds for my air fares, I havent raised the funds to cover my accomadation, food, training fees or transport so I dont want to purchase tickets that might go to waste...

Is it possible to find sponsors out there?

I got an email the other day from an aussie guy who is a huge Dion Nash fan, he gets sportzah taped and posted to him in Australia, and he was really impressed with the interview and with what Kelly and I are trying to achieve, it was good to get his email. Sadly though it was the only response I had from the sportzah interview and the 4XO radio show.

On a more positive note I have got a sponsored helmet from UVEX (yay!), I am getting the Orb, which any one who watched the Winter Olympics would have seen 100's of athletes wearing, it is a fantastic skeleton helmet because it is smooth and airodynamic.

The "mad butcher" called me this morning! We had a good chat, he can't sponsor me but gave me some advice, most of which I have already tried, but I was impressed that he called back, he does sponsor childrens charity groups but finds that athlete sponsorships are not value for money. Oh well, I'll keep looking.

I still havent heard from the Academy of Sport, but I am keeping my fingers crossed they might still card me and give me a personal grant because of my perfomance last year at the world champs (I finsished 16th).

Well I have got 3 assignments to do for uni, one on iron deficeincy in todlers, another on nutricional needs of university students and the 3rd on coahcing methods, so must get on with them.

If any one has any sugestions please email me lou@nzskeletonracer.com or go through my website www.nzskeletonracer.com.

Television and radio interviews...will they lead to sponsorship?

Did you see it? Skeleton racing on prime time tv in New Zealand, what a great interview, the guys from sportzah did a fantastic job of showcasing our crazy sport, they had awesome race footage from Eurosport, with a great crash scene and footage of Kel and me racing side by side, I hope to get a copy of it and put it up on my web site www.nzskeletonracer.com. This morning I got a call from 4XO a local Otago radio station and I am going to be on air with Brefney, Damian and Ron on Tuesday morning at 9am, make sure your listening.

Well, if any one watched Sportzah last thursday, you wouldnt have seen anything about skeleton. Very frustrating, between Kelly and I we had probably over 100 people watching. I spoke to the producer and apparantly they had to pull it at the last minute because the Eurosport footage did not arrive in time. But they have assured me that it will be aired this thurday night at 9:30 on TV3. So make sure your watching, it sounds like there will be some good race footage, and a point of view run taken from a helmet camera.

Tickets are all booked, at $7000 plus taxes, they are a bit cheeper than last year because there is no flight to Japan, I am starting to get excited, I really hope the funds come through and we have enough to go to Norway to train before the first world cup.

Kelly has her own website now, and mine is www.nzskeletonracer.com
Lou