I'm Americas Cup Champion!

Americas Cup Champion, what a great way to end the season.

I'm the first ever Southern Hemisphere athlete to win an overall title in Skeleton.


This week has been great preparation for next years World Championships, there are 3 rather difficult corners / transitions in this track for me, they are the exit of 3, the 12-13 transition and the 14 to 17 straightaway, in all 4 of my race runs I got those sections of the track clean with no hits or skids, so my aim of entering the World Champs with detailed notes of how to do those sections is achieved. In fact I had great lines through both races with the exception of the top of the track, the groove was a lottery both race days for me as they did not have enough athletes testing the groove for them to fix it before the race. Both days I was one of the first up(2nd on day one and 1st on day two) and I hit right out of the groove before corner one, this wont be a problem in the world champs though as they will have the required 3 athletes per groove to test it before the first competitor starts.

Race one run one 15th (lost lots of time and speed with hit and skid out of the groove)
Race one run two 5th (Wicked run, really felt great, loved every moment of it)
Race two run one 13th (lost lots of time and speed with hit and skid out of the groove again)
Race two run two 9th (Good clean run, great lines, no hits or skids but did not feel it or gel with it like I did on the previous day).

AC race 1: did not race
AC race 2: 1st
AC race 3: 6th
AC race 4: 1st
AC race 5: 12th or 13th (still not clear if Noelle was racing or in guest class)
AC race 6: 11th or 12th (same as above)

I have really felt the length of the season over these last 2 weeks, I have raced in more races than any other athlete, been away from home for longer than any other athlete, and probably had more runs than most too! I am ready for a few days off. My aim was to get as many runs in this year as physically possible, and I sure did! I took 3 days off in October after pulling a muscle, and one day off earlier this month, and other than that I think I have trained every session offered to me. 13 competitions, 1 training school, 9 training weeks and 2 selection races over 6 months. I had only one week away from a track over Christmas, I went to Liverpool and spent it with my Grandmother.

I started the season with a personal best push time, and just ended the season breaking it and setting a new personal best time 5.84 seconds, and set a new down time record two weeks ago too.

6 months ago at the start of the season my shoulders were still too painful to run during my warm up and I founds the repetitiveness of sanding my runners too painful, and hauling my bags around airports left me searching for pain killers, but now I can run, sprint train, haul my sled around, sand and polish my runners all pain free, I have even started assisted chin ups and push ups (go shoulders go!).

All I have left to do is pack up my stuff and clean the house Peter and I rented. I fly out of Montreal on Monday afternoon and arrive in Christchurch Wednesday afternoon, somewhere along the way I completely loose Tuesday and get to visit Vancouver and Sydney, I have 3 hours of driving once back to Christchurch too, its going to be a long trip, but I really cant wait to be home :)

Lake Placid race 1

Day one Americas Cup

Official training for the last two Americas cup races began today. I did not know who would show for this race as it is at the end of a very (very very) long season, I have been away from home for 6 months now!

Germany has sent their top athletes including Olympian Anja Huber, she is the current World Champion and European Champion, she also achieved 10 podium finishes in the last 2 world cup season, her team mate Marrion Trott is also racing, Marrion has had 5 top 10 World Cup finishes this season.

The Swiss have sent their top world cup athletes, Jessica Killian is one of the fastest starters in the world and ranked 12th in the World Cup, Barbara Hosch is here to battle it out with Japan number two to see which nation will qualify two athletes for next seasons world cup.

Alexa Putnam, the world cup athlete from the Virgin Islands will be competing.

Italy has sent two athletes including their highest ranked world cup woman, Terestita Bramante.

Japan has sent their second ranked world cup athlete Nazomi, she must finish the season ranked ahead of Switzerlands Barbara Hosch in order to qualify for next years world cup, currently they are 12 points apart.

The reason these two world cup athletes have to defend their world cup spot from each other is that I did well enough in the Intercontinental series (world cup b) to be ranked ahead of both of them, securing a world cup position for me next year and knocking one of them out of World Cup, this is the last chance for both of them to try to gain enough points to stay in the top race series, but only one will succeed!

The Brits have sent 2006 Winter Olympic Silver medalist Shelly Rudman.

Host nation, USA have former two time world champion, and world cup points leader Noelle Pikus Pace, and world cup athlete Annie Oshea.

There are 26 women in total, with other athletes coming from Finland, Korea, Jamaica, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Slovakia, Iraq and ...

New Zealand, I'm the only kiwi here, a kiwi on a mission to do what many kiwis recently failed to do... a mission of immense national importance...

TO BRING HOME THE AMERICAS CUP

With so many top quality athletes it will be a good race, the reason nations have sent top athletes here is that Lake Placid will host the 2009 World Championships, and this may be the last opportunity many nations will have to get their athletes some extra training on the track.

Day one of training went well, only one hit in the first run and a totally clean run in the second heat. We have two more days of training, then two days of racing.