End of Season Up-date October 2008

Ski update.

Greetings friends and supporters. Well, it’s time to catch up with all of you after my first ever full time ski racing season without any school or university.

I returned from the US and Europe winter season in March and rushed back to University in Dunedin. After cramming for ten weeks I completed my BCom in Marketing. It was hectic but I got through and finished with a B+ average just before the start of winter. I’m also one semester short of making it a double degree, with a BA in Philosophy, but I’ll finish that off later as I’ve got some serious ski racing goals to satisfy over the next few years.

My New Zealand winter was full on with the National Team again. I really noticed the difference being based here in Queenstown and not having to rush up and down to Dunedin all winter to study. Training at Coronet was spectacular as always.

For me, the winter will be remembered for the focus on and improvements to my technique and for the results achieved. A very magic moment was winning the inaugural ‘Overall Yellow Bib’ (colloquially known as the golden bib) at the Australia & New Zealand Cup (ANC) Championships at Mt Hutt last week. As holder of that I now have a personal 31^st start position in any Continental Cup race anywhere in the world as well as a personal entry into any World Cup race for the next 12 months. What great timing for me with 2009 being the pre-Olympic year.

Racing-wise it has definitely been a convincing year. When it was all over, I had won the Coronet Cup GS, Slalom and overall, National Super-G and overall titles, and ANC Super G, Super-Combined and overall titles. To add to that, I finally won my first FIS race, an ANC Super-G at Mt Hutt, with a personal best 26 points. Later in the day I made that my first 2 FIS races, winning the Super-Combined with a solid slalom run that afternoon.

The focus for me now moves to getting my fitness up to the optimum level for the Northern Hemisphere season. The season will involve many Continental Cup races (NorAm or Europa Cups), and hopefully a few World Cup starts. The main focus, however, will be the World Championships in Val d’Isere, France, in February.

With spring weather rolling around I hope everyone is making the most of the sunshine with golf or tennis or whatever else keeps you entertained at this time of year.

I’ll be in touch again very soon with my Northern Hemisphere plans. Please enjoy the pictures attached to this email.

Kindest regards

Tim