What a journey, I have to tell the tale.

What a journey, after leaving before the prize giving (I hate doing that) so we had time to pack and drive with the American team the 5 hour trip to Munich that night, we got to the airport hotel at 11pm, check in for our flight was 7.3oam. Our first flight was to Frankfurt, but the flight was delayed on the run way, and we missed the connecting flight to Toronto, I was given the option of spending the night in Frankfurt airport and flying the next day or flying to Washington DC and then onto Toronto that night, arriving at midnight and catching a 7am flight onto Calgary getting there 12 hours later than planned, but still making it there in time for training that night, it sounded like it would work. But it continued to go wrong in Washington when our luggage did not arrive (in the US you have to clear customs with your luggage even if you are only in transit). I headed onto Toronto with out my precious sled or bags, I arrived to find one of my bags (the least important- one full of dirty clothing) had arrived, with the zip broken, and clothing falling out out over the conveyor belt. Wonderful, I was ready to cry, just too tired to deal with it. Inside I found a note from the US customs explaining that in the interest of homeland security they had to bust into my suspicious looking bag, breaking the zip in the process, to ensure my safety and those on the flight with me and that they were grateful for my understanding that they were not liable for any damage they caused. Bastards. They couldn't even put the bag in a plastic bag or try to tape up the zipper. I went through customs in Canada and went to put the now duck-taped up bag on the transfer belt, only to be told that the check in label had been changed and it was no longer checked right through to Calgary and I had to lug the bag around with me for the next 6 hours (This is now about 35 hours after I left St Moritz), not only that but I had no Canadian coins so couldn't get a stupid trolley, and couldn't take the one from customs onto the transfer bus (all kiwis should cherish the fact our trolleys are still free back home). Any way, having found my check in desk five hours early I found the area where all sleep deprived travelers, who are unable or unwilling to pay the huge amounts for airport hotels curl up in hilarious balancing acts ontop of combinations of benches, trolleys and luggage, while never letting go of any bag (there is one of these areas in every airport). I actually managed to get two one hour snoozes in. So finally I checked in and went through to the departure gate and waited, and waited, and waited we boarded late, and then waited another hour while some hydraulics where fixed. Then we were all told that there was another mechanical problem and that we all needed to disembark and head for another gate far far away. So off we all went, just to arrive at the far away gate and be informed that we were to return to the original plane and reboard. AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH. I have never been so tired in my entire life.

Finally I got to Calgary at midday, I was relieved to see Peter there to collect me. I found out that my sled and bag where still in Frankfurt. The sled arrived late last night, and I have missed 2 training days on the track here, if there is a direct flight from Munich to Calgary (surely there is) it would only take about 11 hours. What a crazy trip.

Since today is a Monday, the track is closed (all tracks close on Mondays) So I have training available on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday then I fly off to Lake Placid to meet up with Kelly (Kel flew from Washington DC to Lake Placid) for the World Cup Final.

The trip did however give me a forced rest from sliding and let me catch up on lots of sleep in the last two days, ready for the next two, most important races of the season.

My number here at peters is +1 403 249 1313 if any one wants to call.

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World Ranking is 15th!!

Just a quick note to say how things went yesterday, I finished 18th, I lost time in the first two straights/bends during run one, and came in 20th, but in my second run I had a great top half, but hit hard out of horse shoe, and have bruises to take away as souveniers. I had horse shoe clean all week, but must have been moving a bit faster into it in the second run and missed the timing. In run two I came in 16th, a whole second faster than run one, it was a personal best so i have to be happy. Russ came 30th and was stoked, he gained a world cup point which has put him as number two kiwi, qualifying him for the New Zealand mens Challenge Cup team (a race for lower ranked nations to qualify for the World Champs and next years World Cup Tour). My World Ranking has gone upto 15th, and with the kiwi womens team being ranked 8th in the world we automatically qualify for the World Cup Final in Lake Placid next week, the World Championships in Calgary next month and 3 spots on the World Cup Tour next year. YAY

WE are now in Munich air port I am about to fly to Calgary (where ben is) and Kelly is off to Lake Placid (where Tionette and Iain are) .

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Race day tomorrow

Our trusty car Helga is not liking the cold temperatures here in St Moritz, we have been push starting her for our daily morning warm up, only one more day of praying she will start so we can get to training or the race on time. We also have been pushing her up the hill to get to the track, when it starts to slip on the ice we all pile out and try to keep the momentum going, luckily we have had the Aussie Bobsled boys close buy to help push, the need the training. Peters van, "the love wagon" is not liking the temperatures, and we have tried to push start that twice as well, but it is now parked up at the garage in the bus depot, trying to avoid freezing, so there are 6 of us using Helga to get to the track and back, which means lots of trips back and forth.

It was strange only having one run yesterday(we ususally have 2 per day and sometimes 3), so much effort to get ready and get to the track, do a track walk, warm up, prepare the sled, do some visualisation, get dressed, and wait for your turn to get only 60 seconds of fun. The run was not the best i have done, again I figured out what i wont do tomorrow, came 16th out of all the women. I know i can do better tomorrow. I have drawn 11 in the start order again, I have had very good luck in the draws so far this season. Kelly is not racing due to a broken bone in her hand, we are safe with our Nation ranking points, and a bit of healing time is needed for her to be ready to race in the world cup final in Lake Placid on the 11th.

Russ got 33rd in the start order, he has had some good runs here and is loving the St Moritz life, he is now out with the Australian team celebrating Australia day, a local bar is owned by an Aussie, they are throwing a huge party.

I had a good day off, caught up with an old friend who lives here in St Moritz, and I am feeling relaxed and confident about tomorrow.

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St Moritz

Training yesterday was great, my first run could possible be called my best ever training run, on the second run i tried to correct a few things that didn't need correcting and hit a few walls as a result, wont do that again. But in the second run, I did get a boost out of one of the corners, such a cool feeling.

This track is like no other, firstly it is totally made out of snow using shovels and a bit of water, it takes 15 people 3 weeks to build. The track starts in St Moritz and finished in the next town, Celerina, the first half twists its way through the woods with trees only a few feet from us as we zoom past, then the road runs parallel to the track and any one in a bus can look down on us a few meters away, and we fly past the Horse Shoe Cafe where holiday makers can sit and watch us in the horse shoe corner, and we then leave the woods and the track goes over the cresta run (an English elite club sport sort of like skeleton but even crazier), which is another track like ours in the same valley, then we go under the train tracks and up to the finish. At the finish we climb onto open trucks (very cold, no canopy) and drive back up the valley to St Moritz, past the cow sheds, tourists, and fancy hotels. There is no other track like it. The corners don't have numbers they have names like wall, snake, sunny, dixon, nash, horseshoe, telephone, shamrock, devils dike, tree, bridge, leap, s

Sachs, Martineau, Portago and no name.

Kelly did not slide yesterday, she is resting her hand, she needs two runs to be able to race, but our nation points are sufficient enough to guarantee our 3 world cup spots next season even if she doesn't race.

We have one more training run today, then a day off and the we race.

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World cup and university games

Well I am now in St moritz after a very busy 4 days. Firstly the Cesana World Cup, I finished 21st, this was very disappointing, I had performed better in training, but on race day ice conditions changed and I didn't change my driving to match it. The ice was very soft on race day, and basically I just did too much in each corner, cut too much ice, and got a slow time, my run was clean, I didn't hit any thing or loose control, but that is the way it goes, often the clean runs are the slower ones and the out of control one where you let the sled fly are the fast ones. Kelly finished 25th, and was happy with her time, but the rest of us were not so happy. Ben finished 32nd, Russ finished 40th, and Tionette finished 28th, Michella (Denmark) who was also staying with us in our apartment finished 31st. The week was very rushed, hectic, and tiring.

After the race, Kelly and I drove to Innsbruck for the Winter University Games. We arrived at 5am after and crazy drive across Italy fueled by red bull and coffee (even the gas stations serve fantastic coffee in Italy). We got a few hours sleep then we were off to the track for training, were we met up with lots of other tired world cup athletes who had driven through the night to make it there in time for the last training session. Iain Roberts had been there for the whole week, soaking up the whole University Games experience.

So yesterday Iain and I raced yesterday in the first ever winter university games skeleton event. I was hoping to do much better than I did (seems to be last weeks theme). My first run was fantastic, the lines I took were similar to the runs from the World cup here (except I did not hit the roof this time), in the first run my push did let me down, so going into the second run I thought I could take another 2 tenths off my push, but instead I popped out of the groove and added a whole second to my down time. Oh well, that's life. I finished 8th over all. I cant remember where Iain finished in the end, and the time sheet is in the car, so I will have to add that later. The only down side of the University games was that since it was not a FIBT official race, the new FIBT steel runner rule was not applied, and sanding of runners was not done at the start. This means that if anyone wanted to to they could have used fast runners that are now illegal on World Cup, this left a little bit of an unhappy atmosphere after the race.

After the race Kelly and I drove to St Moritz, and today we trained, I had two fantastic runs, real good, felt wonderful. Kelly hit her hand again, and has it in a bigger protective cast now.

We are staying in the Youth Hostel, it is good, and the food is better than you would expect. I am looking forward to 2 more fast runs tomorrow.

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Official training is over

Well so much to say, but the stupid computer I am using keeps deleting the entry I am trying to write, so this will be the short version. Official training is over, I had some good runs, just need to put it all together for the race today. We think Kelly has a broken hand, and perhaps ben an Tionette as well, a smashed left hand is a common skeleton trait for this track. Thankfully I am injury free. The track is still a huge construction site, but since it snowed, the dust is now mud, so all our dusty kit is now muddy kit. Russ and Tionete will be racing in their first World cup of the season, and Tionette is on runners she has never used, Italian Customs held onto them for a week, and tried to charge them import duty, arguing with italians who dont speak english over the phone does not get you anywhere.

I looking forward to having a bit more personal space, 2 weeks, with 7 of us in a tiny appartment with one double bed, a set of bunks a couch and someone on the floor, also with 6 sleds in the room and all our bags... I am over it.

We race today at 2pm, it was lightly snowing when I got up this morning, which is never good for race day. Luckily I got the best draw I could have hoped for, 11th, but Kelly has 29 and Tionette has 28, so if the track is snowy it wont be good for them.

Tonight after the race kelly and I are off to Innsbruck to take part in the University Games, Iain is already there.

Send fast vibes to us all today.

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Well, we have just finished the International training week here in Cesana, the track is one huge construction zone, and a dangerous one at that, the place is littered, with steel, wood, foam, scaffolding, rubbish, fire pits, random bits of metal, sleezy italian construction workers, welding machines, and shipping containers which we are using for every thing from start house, finish house, race office, toilets... But the track, and the officials are doing an amazing job, there are over 500 sleds a day going down this track, the temperature has been reaching 15 degrees every day, and they are managing to keep the ice on the track. The ice is very dirty, but with all the dust around there is little that can be done about that.

My first 2 days of training were very frustrating, just not knowing what to do where, and using my standard cut runners that I am not used to. But yesterday on my last run i finally felt like I was progressing and today, I had two not so good runs, but in each run there was one area that I felt like I got perfect, very promising.

Since there are 6 kiwis here, we decided to hold a race today, we called it the annual unofficial kiwi championships, there are no rules, anything goes, other than there must be at least 3 men and 3 women, foreigners can be rucruited to make up numbers and the race must be held after the first world cup of the season. The winner must buy number 2 an 3 a drink and 2 an 3 must buy the winner a drink. We had about 30 fore runners and 3 after burners, and the comentator announced the race.

In the mens event Ben chose to give himself a 3 second handicap, and in the womens race we invited Alexandra Gruenberger from Austria to race, giving her honorary kiwi status, this gave her the chance to take the kiwi title, it is only fair after I won her national champs last week.

Results in The First Annual Unofficial Kiwi Champs:
Mens,
1st Ben Sandford 61.50 and 61.08 combined time of 2:02.58 plus 3 seconds giving him a finish time of 2:05.58
2nd Iain Roberts 63.41 and 63.19 giving a finish time of 2:06.60
3rd Russ Ward 62.95 and 63.83 giving a finish time of 2:06.78

A close race indeed.

Womens,
1st Me 63.44 and 63.62 and a finish tim of 2:07.06
2nd Alex GGruenberger with 64.4 and 64.58 with a finish time of 2:08.98
3rd KellyMoffat with64.38 and 64.86 for a total of 2:09.22.

Tionette decided not to take part in the race.

We all have a day off before Official training for the World cup.

My entire inbox on my email account was deleted 2 days ago, including about 50 emails I had not responded to, so resend any thing important.

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1st place in Austria, and finally in orino

Sorry it has been so long since I wrote, I have had a diffuculty accessing internet. I am now in Sestriere, a small ski town in the Italian Alps, about 20 minutes from the Cesana Track, the venue for the Olympics next year.

But first of all, I want to tell you all about the last week. After leaving Holland, we drove to Germany to collect Kelly's new sled, a 2003 Davenport that Dirk was selling, then onto Innsbruck Austria, we expected to get there about 9pm, but arrived about 1am, with out accomadation booked, at the height of the ski season, after a 14 hour drive, thankfully a wonderful woman who runs a Stubl let us sleep in guest apartment she has near the track, she has a hisory of taking in homeless skeleton athletes late at night.

I was not so happy with how I was slididng for the first few days, took a bit of time to get back into the groove. We bumped into Ben in Innsbruck, he was leaving heading for La Plagne, to slide at the Brittish Champs. Kelly and I ended up raceing in the Austrian Championships on the 6th, we expected to be put in the guest class, but with only 2 guests, and a small womens field they let us race in the championships race. I didnt get a personal best finish, but I did win! I am officially the 2005 Austrian National Champion! Kelly came 3rd, and Iain Roberts came 3rd in the mens guest class.

On Friday the 7th, we all packed up and head to St Moritz, there was no training available for us but we wanted to see the track, get a track walk in before the world cup, so that it is fresh in our minds when we arrive there in a couple of weeks. St Moritz is a stunning place, and the track is so beautiful, it is a natural track, build completely out of snow, it takes 15 guys 3 weeks to build, it is a special place.

On the Saturday we were suposed to watch the Swiss womens chapionship race, but both helga (our ford escort) and Peters van would not start, it took us about 5 hours to get them both going and by then we had missed the race, so off to Torino went.

The drive from St Moritz into the Italian Alps is breath taking, the villages, lakes, houses, mountains, bridges, everything, oozes a real neat sense of history that we just dont see back home in NZ. Italy works on a different understanding of time to every where esle we go, if you want to go to a shop, cafe or restarant, it will be closed.

Kelly and I headed to Torino to collect Michella (Denmark) but some how ended up lost totally lost,in Milano, down town driving around in a street market place, the auto bahn seemed to feed us directly into the market! After an hour we found the road out, and got to torino, and took 2 hours trying to find the hotel Michella was in, we couldnt, it was impossible, niether of us speak a word of itallian, and no one there seemed to speak english, untill we found Valario, a friendly young itallian man who we picked up and he helped us navigate our way to the hotel, it was a very entertaining communicaton excercise, especially when he thought left was right an vice versa.

With Michella found we headed to Cesana, a small alpine village where the track is being built (it isnt totally finished). We arrived just in time to watch the track homologation event, a race that needs to be held on all tracks before the first ever internatonal race. The Italian team were racing and it was their first time off the top, the day before they had gone off corner 3, but no one had been off the top, the atmosphere at the top was rather tense.

Michella and i were watching at the bottom of the track when one of the one of guys had a terrible crash, the design of the track, the cut of the ice, and something he did made him hit a roof, or as we would put it, t-bone the roof, in the second to last corner. He lost his sled, and lots of people jumped into th track to help him, the sled shot up the out run, then started to come back down, Michella and I where screaming for them to get out of the track, as the sled was coming, it hit 2 guys, knocked them over like bowling pins, then hit the athlete, who was still lying on the track. A horrible thing to watch... even worse was watching him being taken away in an ambulance on a back board. We all know this is a dangerous sport, but the shape of the roof made it even more so. They re-built the roof, and the internatonal training started today, but I had to cancel my runs today, I was too scared, I needed to see some safe clean exits from the corner to get rid of the images of the crash and get my confidence back.

So today I watched, and learnt alot, and I must say that the track looks like it is going to be alot of fun indeed. Kel had a couple of good runs, as did Ben, Tionette, and Iain, Russ watched today as he arrived late last night, the kiwi team is here in force this week, 6 of us, we are not exactly a small nation in this sport any more.

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Rest is over, time to play

Kelly Peter and I leaving Peters home in Gronigen and are now heading south, we are heading to Dirk Matchenz place in Germany to collect Kels new davenport sled! Then onto.... well not too sure actually, we would like to slide in St Moritz or Igls or Konigsee, but have not heard if it is possible in any of those places, I guess we will just go and see who will have us...I will write again to tell you of our adventures here in Holland, but right now I must pack and get going, it is going to be a long day as I had very little sleep, have been sharing a room with very impressive snorer and an insomniac, which hasn't been an issue untill I lost one of my earplugs last night.

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