sliding again, I love it

just a quick note, slid from Ladies luge start yesterday, two good runs. So today I went off the top, 2 good runs, I was told I had good lines and I didn't hit anything too hard, but I had my head up when I went through corner 15 both times, and the G forces kicked in and my head hit the ice, took a big hit and now have a bit of a black eye, beautiful. As I went up the outrun I was thinking about checking that I didn't have a concussion, and realized i had no idea what the date was or what day of the week it was and that i wouldn't have know before I hit my head either, it is soo easy to loose track of everything when I am in sliding mode, every thing is judged on how many days to the race and how many training runs are left. It has been pretty cold probably around -10, we have been walking to the track every day, it is not too far.

The nasty bug Kelly and I had a few days ago seems to be going through every one here, the schools have been shut because of it! Nasty.

Kel, and Iain had good runs today, Ben is sick and took a day off, we will all be sliding tomorrow.

A huge thank you to Tim and Ellen, I really appreciate it, you have made a huge difference :-) thanks.

So, even the locals don't drink the water.

I wish someone had warned us, Kelly and Michella have been doing the bathroom boogie too. The track manager told me that we must not drink the tap water, too late, oh we at least we now know. I didn't slide yesterday or today, was still feeling sick, but Kelly and I caught up with the american team doctor who has given us some good drugs, and I now feel great and cant wait to slide tomorrow. The track here doesnt look half as bad as all the rumers said it would. There were a few crashes yesterday, Tristan Gale from the US lost her sled, and so did a new russian, but otherwise every one got down safe, I have learnt alot from watching for the last two days.

I have been reading alot while I have been on tour, I am half way through Great Expectations, it is surprisingly good, and I can recommend Lance Armstrongs book, and the Life of Pi (mum I think you would enjoy this), I also read the catcher in the rye, but didnt find it so good. Well time to walk back to our pension, ( which is nice, the 4 kiwis, one dane and dutch Peter are sharing a cottage, the Latvian Bob and skeleton association have sorted out a special deal for us, they are subsidising us to be here, and have done a deal so we can get cheap meals, they are wonderful)

And I thought I was sick during the world cup!

Yesterday Kel and i went down and checked out the track, it is an impressive site, the top of the track comes out of a 7 story building, quite intimidating, we are the first people to arrive since every one else is driving and the boys still havent arrived.

Last night was a night mare, my bug I got off the canadians moved to a higher level and i spent all night in the toilet not know if I should sit or stand, it is now 4pm and i still cant eat any thing, and I am taking a bit of a gamble not knowing where the local loos are.

The good thing is that I am a good sick person, I still manage to laugh at my self and everything going on while I am puking my guts up. Infact i put soo much effort into throwing up last night that I have bust the tiny little capillaries around my eyes, looks like I have had an alergic reaction, wonderful.

well must go. quickly.

lou

10.30 pm Sat 24th

Arrived in Riga, I am most impressed with the airport, infact the airports in sweden, Norway and Latvia are... beautiful!

It cracks me up to think about having all the World Cup athletes arrive at the dunedin airport with the cows accross the fence...( that is for when we have our own track in cent4al otago!... dreams are free but tracks are 50 million euro)

All our luggage came out with in a minute of arriving at the belt and there where 4 friendly latvian sliders waiting to pick up up! Dianies Dukurs, the Sigulda track manager arranged for them to come out and get us. Once in Sigulda Kel and I went to a local pizzeria and scoffed a pizza and coffee each , you wont believe how cheap the food was, a big pizza and a coffee for 2.70 lats that is $NZ8.10! I love latvia.

Saturdays post...World Cup #3 Lillihammer, 19th place

I am currently writing this in Sweden. The stamp in my passport sais Arlanda. I guess that must be the name of this airport I am waiting in transit at. I will enter this into my blog when I am in Latvia (we , Kelly and I, arrive in Riga tonihgt and hope to be collected by a local athlete and taken to Sigulda).

More importantly you all want to know how the race went. It was a good race, I finished 18th in both runs and ranked 19th over all. I didn't have a personal best push or down time on race day which made it a kind of strange anti climax after being heree for 2 weeks. I got a personal best on the first day of official training ( last monday) which was a 57.70is, and my race times werer 58.30ish. I did a 5.69 push in training and a 5.70 on race day. It sucks not geting a PB on race day. But dont get me wrong I am not all down about the race. In fact it was one of the first races wehre a good group of athletes above and below me with very simalar times. if I had gone 15 hundredths of a second faster on both runs I could have picked up 3 spots, and if I hade gone 5 hundreths of a second slower on both runs I would have lost a spot. I finds this very promishing and encouraging. Usually there is a huge jump to the next person ahead of me so the gap is closing a little. Anthert positive thing from the weeks is that 2 athletes ahead of me and 1 behind me in the race ranking make up the whole itlallian team and this year the Itallians must be spending a fortune on coaching ( in preparation for the 2006 winter olympcs) they had 3 coaches with them this week, and 4 or 5 in Konigsee before chrismas so yeah with no coaching and no money and no car I was doing just as well. :-)

I really like the track in Lillihammer ( it is actually in Oyer, I never event went to Lillihammer) It was like a new track for me even though I have been here back in 2001, I really didn't remember anthing about the track from that trip other than it gave liz the biggest swollen forehead I have ever seen and we nearly missed our vus and flight to canada because we werer at the hospital getting her checked out. So I didn\t have any kind of notes or prior knowledge on how to drive the track. I tell you that was very frustrating for the first 5 days, it took me a while to figure out which way the next corner went and how many oscilations or waves was in it, let alone figuring out how to drive it or even go fast. God it would be ice to have a coach.

One thing that has really sucked this week is that every thing costs soooo much here. Kelly and I would have not survived if we had not braught our food from liverpool and you know it is amazing how different the same meal can taste each night, our 5 olives each were life savours to our tastebuds, little packages of yumminess. And I cant rate porrage hight enough, it really gives you plenty of go for a day at the track.

I just have to interrupt this blog entry, I am actually writing this in my diary and willl put it on lime tomorrow but we just boared our plane to Riga, like a lot of our european flihgts we all got onto a bus and drove from the terminal to a far off corner of the airport and got onto a tiny little "Fokker 50" (he he he) Scandanavian air lines plane, it is like a skinny pencil. Looks like we are going to Buss our way to Latvia.

Back to Norway... another frustrating thing was not having acess to a phone, which means that I havent been able to call home in 2 weeks, I really cant wait to talk to mark tomorrow.

Thye Canadian team showed up in Norway infected with the Lugie, and I spoke too soon saying that I had been healthy all season and was full of energy. The bloody crook canucks spead their bugs alll around the start hous ( which is not usually the most hygenice place at the best of times), and I got sick.

So Rack day morning I woke up feeling like absolute shit with a paiful raw trhoat and permanaently dripping nose. WE got droped a the track an hour too early and had to hang around before wwe could do our track walk ( "hurry up and wait" is a common theme in our skeleton world, we are constantly rushing to get somewhere on time then hanging around for a couple of hours before we can do anything.) Half way through my track walk I was feeling soo crook (dry reaching) that I nearly stopped and headed back to the top, I am glad I didn't ( thanks to kel)because I had managed to get my head into "race mode" and out of "poor me I feel sick on world cup day" mode by the time I reached the bottom.

The atmosphere was unlike any other WC because the men were racing on the next day (friday) ( Eurosport are always messing with our race times and order) Which meant that we had the start house all to ourselves which was good but we sort of missed all the men running around in lycra!

All week in traiing I had been loosing a lot of time and positions in the last few corners but on race day I got my co-ordination back ( I had a few shoulder/knww left/right up/down steering issues ealier in the week but I did a bit of that brain gym stuff that my mum taught me back in highschool and got back on track) and \I finally made my body do what I wanted it to do and picked up 2 spots in both runs on those troublesome bottom corners.

Ben had a good first run and finished 19th but he dropped 6 places in his second run ( which would really suck)and he finished 24thoverall. Iain Robert our new kiwi athlete is fling he is the only kiwi that go a pb on race day and totally enjoyed his first world cup race.

We usually party after the race but since all the boys were busy preparing for their race the following day we got the rare opportunity for an earlyish night and a sleep in.

Last night- Friday, after the mens race was the party night. Snorre (Norweigan athlete) had managed to get a special cheap price at the local bar, the beer was only $ND9 each, hence kel and I left our wallets at home.

The party was a good laugh, with all sorts of shinanagans, some were even playing strip poker!. IT was a good end to a couple of long weeks sliding in Norway. I am looking forward to going back I know I can pick up a lot of time on the track and I need to collect that pb i missed out on on race day.

Kel, Michella ( Denmark) and I only got a couple of hous of sleep before we had to start loading the van with our gear for the 3 hour trip to Gardermon Airport Oslo, the trip was cramped with 4 across the back seat but we all slept.

Well was are about to land in Riga, Latvia, I have been on of those horrible travellers who keep sneezing and sniffling and spreading my germs around the plane this trip. I am glad I got some echanacia herbal teal from home before I left and the berrocas have been keepin gme going too.

I really wish I had a lap top, then I wouldn't have to spent lots of time ( and money) typing this out tomorrow and we could watch dvds and play games when we are bored oh yeah and worl out graphs of our splits and time from training, whcih would be the really good....I guess that would be a little more antisocial thatn playing cards, but then agian I dont think we would want to play cards with the austrians or brits!

Kellys email to Trevor Mallard

New Zealand skeleton athlete View Full Header
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From: Kelly Moffat
Date: Sat, January 17, 2004 7:47 am
To: "Dave Adams" , (more)
Priority: Normal



Dear Mr. Mallard,

I am writing to you again concerning my sport of skeleton and the criteria to which
I may be eligible for funding from the government.
I expressed in my last email, that was unanswered, how little money I have and it is
not looking like I will be able to complete the season. My teammate and I are living
on food that is not adequate for the average person, let alone an international
athlete because of our lack of money.

We have been pitied by some of the larger nations who have offered to help us out
where they can because they see our desperate state. This doesn't mean money, but
support which is something we don't seem to be getting from our own country. Is this
the way you want to portray New Zealand's Olympic hopefuls?

Mr. Mallard, all I'm asking for is some sort of guidelines to enable us to set a
goal for ourselves. We met the criteria for funding last year but were not granted
it. We've done it ourselves up to now but World Championships seems very far off,
even though we will qualify, because we will not be able to pay for food or
accommodation while there.

I realise you are a busy man, but I am a desperate Kiwi athlete asking for some help
to achieve my lifelong goal of making it to the Winter Olympics, respesenting my
country, New Zealand.

Thank you for your time.

Regards,

Kelly Moffat
New Zealand Skeleton Team

Last day of training.

Hey Guys

I have just snuck on to the computer here at the library, sliding today was good and bad, first run was a shocker, but my last run was much better, a good way to finish official training. The race is tomorrow morning at 10am, we are going to be on Euro sport so watch out for us. Bens sled broke today, but i think he has been able to get the local roadworks maintainance shop to fix it, hopefully it works for him tomorrow. This is a frustrating track it is very easy to loose alot of time, just one thing wrong at the bottom to the track and you can loose over half a second. Tomorow will be good though, I will put all the good bits together and get two fast runs.

send speedy thoughts our way...

Rest Day

I took a rest day today, since i have done 14 runs in the last 5 days, and I will be sliding for the next 5 days. I still went upto the track, I have been loosing alot of time in the botom half of the track, over a second in fact. So I went to watch others lines hoping i could figure out what I need to be doing, this is where a coach would come in real handy, still my times in the top half of the track have been pretty good, so I have the next 8 runs to fix the bottom half. Today it was soooooo cold at the track perhaps -20ish, and with a slight wind that cut through you, the ice is real cold so i will be sharpening my runners tonight. Kel and I are surviving well on our big box of groceries we got from ASDA in the UK, and some how our nightly meal of tined tomatoes, puree, garlic, onion, pasta kidney bean and sweet chillie sauce has managed to taste different every night, I am getting alittle tired of porrage every morning but it is a hell of a lot better than smelly german cheese, meat and rock hard bread. It is amazing how much more energy I have had over the past couple of weeks, if you remeber I was constantly tired leading upto christmas, I even didnt race in that americas cup race because I was tired. It is strange but I am just feeling real good. I have lost just over 5kg since I left NZ, that is a bit up on this time last year, but I dont expect to loose much more, since we only have 2 weeks of Latvian food, then we will be self catering, which we will do pretty cheaply.

Tomorrow is the last day of paid training, then the world cup official training starts for 3 days, then the World Cup race, I am looking forward to it. But it is forcast to dump a meter of snow on Tuesday, which will cause havoc, considering the americans couldn't even get their cars up the hill today.

There is a Telemark world cup being held here at the moment, and there are no Kiwis competing, we were chatting to a couple of american telemark racers and they said that if there is any kiwis interested in racing they should look up the telemark race site on the internet, that could be a bit of fun for you ben.

Well must go, I want to head upto the track to watch the second group of training (we are first group) and need to get out to the road to hopefully flag down some athletes and catch a ride up, it sucks not having a car but we are surviving.

I will probably write again on monday, lou.

oh yeah check out the photos of me and kel at the altenberg brit champs, at this site http://www.fotogec.com/, sorry I cant seem to put a link in at the moment, just cut and paste, you will need to go to the skeleton page and then the top one is the brits, I have a black helmet with a silver fern on it, there are a couple of great photos, and some of Kel and I standing around chatting. There are also photos of us on the site training in Konigsee, have a good look through them.

must go, miss you all.
lou

The world cup atmosphere arrives

Well I took 4 runs yesterday! (I am not going to calculate that in to kiwi money... it will just make me cry... more than a weeks student allowance). Two in the morning and two in the evening, it was real good, there where only about 10 of us in the morning session and 4 in the evening, i like training in small groups, you get to go about 5 minutes after you get back upto the top. I had pb`s all 4 runs, and no new bruises. but Ben and I didn't have any way of getting home after the evening session so we had to leave our sleds at the track and walk, it only took about an hour and twenty minutes. This morning, alot of other nations arrived, we slid with Cananda, Switzerland, Norway, Czech, Holland, Russia, Latvia, which meant about 40 minutes between runs. Again i had good runs, but i am loosing time int he bottom of the track, about a second on a couple of other sliders.

well must go i have run out of time here at the library, will tell you all more next time.

lou