Jumping and Racing – Tim Cafe’s Update 2 September 2009
Posted: September 25th, 2009 | Author: tim | Filed under: Latest | No Comments »We really are into the business end of the New Zealand winter now, and despite one little speed-bump everything is going well for me. Read on for some racing, some training, a broken hand and famous pink and purple casts!
Japanese FIS GS. Photo: Tague Thorson
At home analysing the results! Photo: Wayne Cafe
The day after I wrote the last update I went training Super-G on the Hurdle at Coronet, in flat light, very early in the morning. On my third run I hit a small bump before the jump halfway down the course, sending me off balance. Taking off on one foot, I flew a long way very off balance. I landed on one ski and managed to stay up, but my hand hit the snow for balance on landing. As I skied away I realised my hand was quite sore. I took off my glove and sure enough – a wonky metacarpal and some serious swelling. For the medically inclined, it was a spiral fracture of the second metacarpal with minor displacement. See the x-ray above for proof!
The cast prevented me from racing the first race series of the year at Cardrona, and stopped me from training on snow for about two weeks. After this time I’d had enough, so I went into Browns Ski Shop and had champion boot fitter Tyler grind my pole grip down and develop a specially padded strap to attach the pole to my hand. The system (nicknamed the Tim Cafe Cast Holder, or TCCH 1.0) worked well. But as would be expected I was still struggling to push out of the start gate properly, and my lateral balance on flat slopes was quite out.
The first races back was the Southern Cup FIS series at Coronet. I raced both GSs but decided not to race the slaloms because of my hand. I skied well in a tough field and finished up the rankings from where I started, skiing to my FIS points. The hand definitely made skiing in the flats quite tough, but overall I was happy with my performance.
The following week brought on the NZ Winter Games. These games were a great opportunity for all winter sports to come together, compete and learn about each other’s sports. It was also fantastic to have so much TV and press coverage of winter sports – one of the hardest things about being a ski racer in New Zealand is the lack of wider understanding of winter sports here. It’s just not in our culture like some other sports are. The alpine events included a super-G, a GS and a slalom at Coronet Peak. There were many strong national teams racing, including Canada, USA and Germany. I finished 6th in the Super-G, scoring an awesome 29 point result that has lowered my world Super G ranking by a massive 101 places to 184th. This is a serious step towards qualifying for Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Unfortunately I fell in both the GS and slalom, but hey, that’s ski racing!
From here, we have 2 FIS races at Treble Cone and the National Champs/ANC finals at Coronet Peak/Mt Hutt starting this Friday and running through next week. After the ANC finals I will stay at Mt Hutt with coach Nils and team-mate Ben Griffin to train speed for 10 days or so, and hopefully celebrate some more great results! Click on the links below for a small sampling of great Winter Games media coverage.
Multimedia links:
Picasa albums (some great shots on here): http://picasaweb.google.com/cafti274
Getty Images/Winter Games:
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/bbElyrNtFx3/Winter+Games+NZ+Day+5+Alpine+Skiing/gr2WOik7pnK/Tim+Cafe
3 News story:
Also, be on the lookout for the Winter Games summary on Sky Sport. Some great stuff in there.
See you next time!
Tim
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