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.

Can a kiwi win the overall Americas Cup?

I am now in Lake Placid USA, on Monday the FIBT sliding school begins, then on the following Monday my campaign to be the first Southern Hemisphere athlete to have an overall win in an FIBT race series begins.

I am currently sitting in 2nd place in the Americas Cup, we have two races left of a 6 race series, I won 2 of the previous 4 races. These next two races are the last races of the season and will be on the 2009 World Championship track, so winning here will set me up well for next years world championships.

The good news is I set a new personal here last week, only .95 of a second off the track record.

Ben came 4th in the World Cup final!!! What a fantastic finish to a great World Cup season for him.

Ben, Iain, Tionette and myself are all off to Altenberg next weekend.

Winterberg

I am now in Winterberg Germany, I am forerunning for the World Cup final here, after this I will head to Altenberg for the World Championships.

I have been rather poor at updating my blog this season, so to sum it up, I have had my best season ever as far as sliding goes, and probably my 2nd best as far as resutls go (to this point), my sliding has improved and my understanding of what it takes to go fast and a how to apply it has improved, thanks to my coach, Tim who has helped me make these important steps forward.

My results in the 9 races I have competed in so far were a mixed bag, at times rather inconsistent, but at other times fantastic and in Konigsee, I had the best half run of my life. I have be competing on the new Intercontinental Cup series, which had about 20 women who were supposed to be comparable to the athletes ranked 9th -25th on the World Cup.

This was the first year that they split the field into two major race series, to start with we were all unsure how the quality of the two fields compared. Athletes on IC have been breaking track records, showing that the best are certainly as good as the top WC athletes, and this week I have been forerunning for the World Cup Final (being the first athlete down the track to test the timing and the groove, but not competing) and was pleasantly surprised to see that the level of ability in WC field seems to be not far above that of the IC field, two other IC athletes are competing in the WC with their times down the track showing a much smaller gap between IC and WC than the official points table suggest.

I am one of only a few athletes going to the World Championships from the IC and can not wait to race the best in the world on the demanding track in Altenberg.

I won, again :)

Well I have had a very busy couple of weeks competing in 2 IC races and 3 Americas cup races.

Today in Calgary we had our 3rd day of racing after 3 days of training and I won the Americas Cup Race with my fastest down time of the week. In the IC race held two days ago I finished with my highest points of the season in 8th place, but was disapointed as I did not have very clean runs and my result was missing the high speeds that I am used to getting, but today I went 2kmph faster making the win even sweeter, my best run of the week, my best down time of the week and my highest speed, i'm super stoked! I also beat the two top IC US athletes and tomorrow morning I am off to their home track, Lake Placid, were I aim to do it again.

Right now I am ranked 2nd overall in the Americas Cup series (even after missing one of the races), I hope to compete in the last two AC races in April (after the World Championships), if all goes to plan then NZ might just be able to bring the Americas cup home after all!

After the IC in Lake Placid I'll head to Europe for the World Chamiopnships, in Altenberg Germany.

You can check out all our rankings at http://www.fibt.com/
and you'll find a points chart so you can compare results on http://www.skeletonsport.com/ (go to the ranking page).

Oh yeah, two golds, but no flag or national anthem!! thats just not fair, I'm just goin gto have to win again and hope that the venue has a traditional awards ceremony. In Park City I was on the podium with Led Zeplin playing!!?

I won

I competed in the first Americas Cup race of the season today in Park City Utah, we had heavy snow -15 degrees celcius and strong winds, it was horrible weather to be sliding in but I put down two great runs on a snowy track. I was .22 behind in the first run but put down my cleanest run in the second heat and finished .08 head of the next closest athlete.

I havn't been on the podium yet, the awards ceremony is tomorrow after the IC race.

Tomorrow I am racing in the 4th Intercontinental race of the seaon, so best go and get a good nights sleep.

Park City sliding

We are now in Park City Utah for the Americas cup and Intercontinental cup races, Iain, Mike, Katharine are also here, with Iain and I racing in the Intercontinental race on Saturday and all of us competing in the Americas cup on Friday.

There is a 'Snow Emergency' in Park City, which means there is so much snow that they have no where to put it so they are restricting cars in the village, it is a real winter wonderland.

Training started yesterday, I did pretty well with a 52.58, and was the fastest women of the second run in our training session.

Ben and Tionette have been training in St Moritz and will shortly be headed to Cessana for the next world cup race.

Time to go to the track now.

Winterberg IC

We raced today, I had two personal best down times and finished 10th overall, Lindsay Alcock set a new track record.

Iain Roberts was in 6th place after run one and finished 8th after the second run, his best ever result.

Ben raced in Lake Placid finishing 7th, and Tionette finished 18th.

Katharine has been fore-running and got lots of run in here in Winterberg.

I am now waiting to hear from the NZBSA selection committee to see what I need to do next, I will either head to Cessana to prepare for the world cups there or head to North America for the races there...

Check out all our results www.fibt.com

New Track Record in Konigssee

I set a new track record in Konigssee and reached 107kmph.

The season so far been a very big learning curve, with Tim on board as my coach he has been putting me through my re-education, and has been successfully weeding out bad habits I had mastered over the last 8 years.

At the first race of the season, the EC in Igls, it seems like I made more progress in 2 weeks there than in 4 years on my sled, but a warm day, deteriorating ice and a draw that saw me head off 31^st out of 32, meant that the best I could do was a 6^th place.

Next stop was the IC in Cessana, I missed the last World Cup there last year and had not been since the Olympics in 2006, at first I found it to be quite an intimidating track, and did not manage to relax the way I could in Igls, but by the race day I understood the track again and was comfortable, I set two personal best down times on the race day and finished 10^th. But I think that one more week of ice time on that track will see me get it.

Next we drove to Konigssee in Germany, again I had not been to this track since before the Olympics, and I had been sent to hospital after crashing there many years ago. Training was going very well though, I loved the rhythm of the track and the exit of Kriesel (360 degree corner) was problem free. I finished up the last training day with a 6^th place, a personal best down time and a massive power skid up the last uphill straight (meaning that if I could repeat the run and tidy up a few wee mistakes and not do the power skid, I would have been in the mix for a top result).

Race day arrived and from the moment I left the block, my run was beautiful, I was able to give the sled up and let it run before corner 1, the 4 S curves were beautiful and I felt the rhythm of them and I got down the straight with out hitting any corners, I barreled into Kriesel faster than I have ever gone before, I got the first two steers right on the money for the first time, which meant the sled did not drop down where I usually do my 3^rd steer, and the higher speed meant I was under more pressure and the timing for my steers needed to change, anyway the memory is fleeting, but obviously I missed the timing on my 3^rd steer, and next thing I am up at the wooden roof looking down at where I should be, I saw the hit coming, my memory is very clear and definite about that moment. I hit the short-wall hard, and was bucked off my sled. Next thing my body is on the ice and my hands are out stretched clutching onto the back of the sled, I did not want to loose it, but my grasp was not good enough and it peeled away from me in slow motion, my poor sled took off on its own. I hated the sound of it crashing and bashing its way down the track, but then I started to hurt and had to get moving, rolling and wriggling to get an even coverage of small bruises, burns and wounds rather than one big raw one, I was not wearing any padding or layers under my speed suit, ouch.

I stopped in the bend before Ziel curve, jumped up and started chasing after my sled, I caught it in Ziel, and began pushing it up the hill towards the final corner, my helmet triggered the final timing eye, with both myself and my sled attached, setting a new track record time of 3 minutes and 31.54 seconds. I finished 20^th out of 21, with a new scar to add to the collection. Despite this, I am still leading NZ athlete on the points table.

A few years ago a crash like that would have probably scared and shaken me enough to make me cry, but instead I was on a high from how wicked the run felt before the crash, I just wanted to get back to the top and put my sled back in the park ferme and wait to see if anyone else crashed to let me have a second run at it, no one else crashed in the first run, so I did not get a second run, which is good, my legs were probably too swollen to fit in the sled anyway.

I am now in Winterberg, nursing a sore, swollen bruised body, it’s not pretty but I heal fast. I hope we can get on the track today, even though I crashed, the first half of that run was one of the most beautiful runs I had ever had and I want to get back on and do it again.

Iain had a fantastic race in Konigsee, even though he was sick for the training and only managed to get 2 runs in before the race, he finished 11^th setting a new personal best down time.

Katharine Eustace a new slider from Wanaka was sliding well in the Konigssee European Cup few weeks ago finishing 10^th, which is very good, Ben came in 10^th in the Park City World Cup, and Tionette came in 22^nd there also. Ben and Tionette are in Lake Placid; they race there on Thursday, their results will be up live on fibt.com,

We race here on Saturday, then Tim flys home for Christmas with his kids, I will stay sliding for another week then head for Christmas with my Grandmother and family in Liverpool, following that… who knows, I will be waiting to hear from the NZBSA selection committee after the race here to see if my world ranking and Tionettes pulled hamstring means we switch circuits, if not and I’m on the Intercontinental Cup for the second half, I’ll fly to the US, where I will race in 3 IC’s and 3 AC’s before returning to Europe, where I will compete in/forerun/watch the last two World Cups before racing in the World Championships in Altenberg Germany.