My Brother Guy is getting married today.

The story of Guy and Dani (read at the wedding by several cousins, in pantomime style)

Once upon a time, many years ago, Guy and his buddy were driving out to
Lincoln Univercity, probably late for a class, with music cranked and dreaming
of foreign women... They thought they were hallucinating when two
beautiful foreign girls laden with backpacks appeared on the opposite
side of the road trying to hitch a lift.  In record speed they spun the
car around and screeched to a halt, and asked in their most manly
voices: “G'day, where ya going?”

“Akaroa” replied the girls in wonderful exotic accents.

“What a coincidence! That’s where we're going! Jump in.”

These two young university punks couldn't believe their luck, two hot
travelling Swiss chicks! but even better, they were career women, they
were OLDER WOMEN and they were single.

The lectures, tests and assignments due that day were rapidly forgotten
and a life-changing road trip to Akaroa began.

Guy and his buddy somehow became tour guides and the one-hour drive to
Akaroa became a weekend long adventure.

Soon enough the girls had to move on and Guy and his buddy had to get
back to uni and find excuses for late assignments.. “two hot Swiss
chicks abducted us and held us captive in Akaroa” did not go down so
well with their professors!

Our romantic goofy brother Guy had managed to part with an email address
and an awkward 'shared moment' with Dani.

Guy, in an attempt to pull, had briefly held Dani’s hand. Dani’s
surprised and quizzical look in return scared Guy off!

Time passed.

Dani continued her world travels, and Guy’s “Swiss Miss kidnappers”
story gained him huge street cred in the computer rooms at uni.

But Dani’s curiosity got the better of her... “Why did this cute kiwi
boy hold my hand?? What did he mean by it?” …and so the emails began.

Dear Guy: What did you mean when you held my hand?

Dear Dani: What did you think I meant when I held your hand?

Dear Guy: I think I know what you meant when you  held my hand but I'm
not sure…please explain.

Dear Dani: I think maybe I did mean what you think I meant when I held
your hand but I'm not sure as I don’t know what you think I
meant...please explain...

…and so the emails continued until one of them figured out what the
other one thought, and a long distance internet romance blossomed.
Eventually Dani returned New Zealand to figure out exactly what this
Kiwi boy actually thought and meant.

But sadly, Dani’s world-wide holiday had to end and she returned to
Switzerland... It did not take long, though, for lovesick Guy to follow.
His American passport unfortunately would not allow him to work so Guy
became a kept man, a toy boy, the homemaker while Dani went out to work.
It was a tough life ;). Dani returned every day to find her young Kiwi
lover had baked bread and cleaned house and prepared dinner. Eventually
Guy’s visitor’s visa expired and he was forced to return to NZ. Once
again they were separated.

Eventually — and to our surprise — Guy’s years of Dungeons and Dragons,
computer obsession and time spent building weird and wonderful levels on
his favourite computer games led him toward a bloody good job, and the
family collectively sighed with relief.

Overnight Guy became an EMPLOYED ELIGIBLE BACHELOR! and Dani quickly
returned to NZ... and finally the romance continued.

Hurrah!

Guy and Dani, you've had a fairytale romance that has spanned the globe,
and I wish I could be there to share this day with you, instead I send
my very best wishes, love and prayers that today is the beautiful
beginning of your future together and your soon-to-arrive family.

All my love

Lou
Igls, Austria

In the end I could not justify the amount of money it was going to cost for me to go to Japan. Instead I stayed in Igls Austria and trained. Which was definately the right decision. I have had over 30 runs here on this track and I have regained the fast feeling on my sled that I had a few years ago. My high speeds are very good and my down times, while not as fast as I was before I busted the shoulders they are getting close, getting back there. The official training for the Igls world cup starts of Tuesday, we have two days of training, three runs each day, then a day off and then we race on the Friday. The training and race results will be on fibt.com.

Following this race I am off to St Moritz for the World Championships, St Moritz is a fast exciting track, I had many training runs there last year, and managed to reach 129.9kmph, I am looking forward to breaking that and hitting higher than 130kmph.

Happy New Year and Merry Christmas

I am still in Igls training, and all is going very very well. with three days training on the track, I then fore-ran the Austrian championships and went faster than I did in last years world cup race here where I finished 17th. So it looks like I am getting back to where I used to be. My shoulders are not too bad, they get stronger every day, and I now have no trouble caryying my sled around, I still have a half second to find on the track to be able to equal the times I was getting prior to dislocating my shoulders and surgery, but I hope that my time here will help me get comfortable on the sled so I can find my pre injury race form. I had about 30 runs before christmas, which is not enough to have any serious hopes of getting anywhere but the back of the pack so here I am getting in as many runs as possible so that I can be on a more balance playing field by the next race. I train today at 2pm and 6pm, better go and get to the track.

Ciao
Lou

Christmas Eve

Hello everyone

Merry Christmas. I am in St Anton Austria with my Brother and Sister inlaw, Ben and Karen, they are running a Chalet here in the alps for the winter and I have come here to have my first christmas with kiwi family since 1999!!!

I went and checked out the track in Igls today, it is looking great with brand new very nice start and finish buildings.

My plan is to get as much sliding in here in austria as possible, the next race is in Japan, the track there is a lot of fun and we dont get to go there very often, I have found some affordable flights out there, so at this stage it looks like I am on my way, I loved that track last time I was there for the world champs and I'm looking forward to getting back on the ice there.

Have a great chirstmas and New Year, I'll give an update of how it is all going next month.

Park City World Cup

I arrived and my luggage didn't, -25 celcius and snowy out side and I only have jeans a t-shirt and a light jacket and street shoes. The airline said they would get my bags to me as soon as possible but did not know when that would be. AAAAHHHH, luckily I have good travel insurance and once my bags are missing for 12 hours or more, they will let me buy emergency clothing, a nice warm new jacket and snow proof shoes, it felt like christmas. Day one of training went very well for me, I clicked on my sled, I had one of the highest speeds and my down time did not have me trailing the field, I felt like celebrating. But after that I started to try too hard, and just didnt click with the sled, I kept on panic steering with my feet which is way too agressive and slows you down way too much. 6 training runs then race. Unfortunately I didn't even go as fast on race day as I did on the first day of training. I didnt get to understand the track or be sure of what I was suposed to be doing in the corners. I finished 24th.

But I can take some thing good from this race, my first training day I clicked with the sled and got the high speed that I am used to from previous good races, and that is progress that was the first run of the season that felt right, so now I need to do it again, it is a pity that I am only getting 6 runs per track, I really needed a month somewhere at the start of the season, but that is a luxury I have to learn to work with out.

Next stop Lake Placid, I like Lake Placid, I have had many many training runs there over the years and can feel the rythm of the track.

Calgary World Cup

Calgary World Cup

It was a last minute decision for me to go to Calgary, I originally intended to spend the week in Lake Placid getting comfortable on my sled as a lack of money meant I did not get the preseason training in that I had hoped for and I did not want to show up at a world cup race having not even had 10 runs on the sled, getting a good result is hard enough, trying when other competitors have had 10 times more runs to prepare for the season makes it a wee bit harder.

Still though, as the FIBT selects atheltes for the world championships on points and the only way to get points is by racing, I decided to go.

We got there and it was cold, very cold, unbelievably cold, so cold that the schools were closed and there was an extreme weather warning.

Day one of training was cancelled, it was -41 celcius.
I was happy, I'd much rather hybernate in the hotel room than run around in a lycra swim suit and add 120kmph worth of wind chill to -41.

Day two training was postponed untill mid day when the temperature had heated to a balmy -35, they offered each athlete one run.

Day three, last day of official training, women were training at 8am we got there and they cancelled training, then 5 minutes later announced it was back on and we slid in -31, 2 runs each.

Race day it was alot warmer, I hit the left wall before corner one and the game was over, you cant hit at the top of the track and definately not before corner one, I also bumped out of one (because I went in late after hitting before one), and lost too much speed and finished 23rd. I was disapointed with the result, as I really want to get back to where I was two seasons ago before my trampoline mishap, but reality is that it will take me a while to get comfortable on the sled and learn how to make my shoulders work and drive the sled the way they used to, both shoulders were tightened at the back, I need them to rolled forward. And it will take me more than 15 runs to be sliding fast and being competitive.

Next stop Park City, I havent slid there for over 4 years! I remember the track well and I'm looking forward to sliding there again.



Visit the Snow Farm

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Licence to Fly

Today I got my Helicopter Pilots Licence ;)

Still in NZ but hopefully for not too much longer.

I am still in Wanaka, but I had some great news today:

Press Release: Legendary cross country running and ski coach, Bernie Gardner, coach to New York State's best young runners and skiers is helping me get to the Lake Placid World Cup.

THANK YOU Bernie!!

I have tickets booked and paid for that have me departing on the 31st of October, the cheapest round the world ticket $4600, it's not ideal, it only lets me stop in Montreal (two hours from Lake Placid) then onto Europe and back to NZ, so no flights to Park City or Calgary or Japan, I need to secure further sponsorship to be able to add those sections in. Even though I have the tickets, at this stage I cant afford to get on that plane, I still need the money for a rental car, accommodation food and training fees, and a coach would be nice too! The ticket can easily be changed right upto the departure date.

I have my heart set on securing a significant sponsor in the next 10 days, and it is looking positive, hopefully I wont have to make any changes. If I can do it, then I'll be there asap, and hopefully have the money to get to the Park City world cup and the Calgary world cup too. If I can get to at least two of the first 3 races, then there is a good chance that both myself and Tionette will qualify for the World Championships in St Moritz, if we don't then it comes down to the challenge cup race in Altenberg, where only one of us will qualify for the World Champs, which is the worst case senario, I hope we can avoid it.

It is a pretty crazy situation when New Zealands top female athlete, and NZ's highest performing female Winter Olympian from Torino (I came 12th), is struggling to get the money together to buy the airfares needed. If only the NZOC had kept their promise and refunded the cost of my airfare to the Olympics.

Let the good news I got today, spark a whole wave of sponsorship and funding sucess that'll take me closer to the podium finish with my name on it.


(ps when I havent been in the gym, persuing sponsors or rehabbing with the physio, this is what i've been upto over the last 4 months...full time student and pilot in command! 58 hours flying time logged, and all exams passed ;)

Just spoke to Peter (dutch athlete) in Lake Placid, they have found an apartment in town for only $US200 per month each, which is a bloody cheap, and wireless internet works there too. He said the ice is good and that I have to get over there. I Have re booked my tickets and am going to have to commit to paying for them, they need to be paid for on Monday, but committing $4000 to tickets with out having the money to actually go, live and compete yet is scary!!!!!!!

I'm on the wrong side of the world.

Ben and Peter are in Lake Placid. I need to be there too. I am still negotiating sponsorship with several companies, if they come to the party then I'll be away asap, if not, then i'll keep looking.

Getting to the Olympics last year took everything I owned and help from friends and family from all over the world, it was a HUGE $$$ effort. So $$$ wise me and my network of supporters have nothing left to put into this years campaign: I need to secure sponsorship to make it happen.

Despite the usual lack of money, and the rather concerning lack of a back up plan, there are some very positive and exciting aspects to this upcoming season:

• I have arms that work properly now (which is a nice bonus), I can lift them above my head, even better I can lift weights above my head, my surgeon did an amazing job.
• I am not popping pain killers evey four hours, and thankfully I wont be travelling with a supply of cortisone injections (which looked rather dodgy last season).
• I have been doing laps of the house carrying my sled (all by myself- by the end of last season and at the olympics my shoulders were so shagged that I couldnt carry it!)

I really am looking forward to sliding and racing, where as this time last year, I was saying that I was ready to slide and looking forward to it, but really I was was just being stuborn and unwilling to let a STUPID freak trampoline accident stop me from going to the Olympics, sliding with my injuries last year was a chore, it wasn't fun, infact it sucked, and you could see it in my performances, this year it's not going to be a chore, I am just going to have fun, and love it. With no pain, I will be able to relax, and when you can relax, you go FAST. I am itching to get back on my sled, try out my new runners, and slide freaking fast, and get my performances back to pre injury level and even better.

My 12th at the Olympics was not enough to qualifly for a PEG's grant from SPARC, I needed to finish at least 7th to get any help from them, but a top 16 (and top half of the field) at the World Championships this January will qualify me for a SPARC grant that'll make life a whole lot easier. I need to get to the world champs (St Moritz). Every day that passes with out securing a major sponsor makes qualifying for the world champs harder and harder, because while I am not over there training on ice, others are, so if you wanna help, cross your fingers, make a wish, or say a prayer (or even better, if you feel inclined- sponsor me!).

I have gotta get over there soon.