Christmas update!

Servus von Österreich!

Finally time for me to send an update. Sorry for the long gap since the last one. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you. Hoping some of you have managed to squeak in some warm sun rays amongst what has been an average summer so far, so I’m told?

What’s been up?

This winter in Europe has been quite challenging. There have been unseasonably warm temperatures, and a lack of precipitation. Luckily, up high, it has still been cold enough to make some snow and skiing is still possible. However we were forced to train on glaciers well into December and many races have been cancelled. In addition, both my teammates Angus Howden and Ben Griffin have suffered injuries. Nevertheless Ben is back on snow now and Angus hopes to be in a few weeks time. Me, I had a good GS race in Val Thorens and have been training well, but struggling to get momentum going with so many breaks in our progression. As far as the Olympics are concerned, I meet discretionary criteria in Super-G and am hanging out for selection in January. Read on to hear where we’ve been and where we’re going! Also, check out the new video section!

Glacier Training & Italy/France

Ben, Angus, Nils and I arrived in early November to the Zell am See area in Austria, where we are basing ourselves. Our first project was the Europa Cup Super-G races in Reiteralm. Due to the lack of snow we were unable to get any gate training before the races, however all 3 of us skied decently in a very tough field and gained experience – many world cup skiers were amongst us. Following this we had a GS training block on the glacier to prepare for some races in Val Thorens, France. Unfortunately Angus did some minor damage to his back and put himself out for a week, and Ben broke his hand (in exactly the same place as I did in Coronet this year!) and put himself out for 3 weeks.

We headed to France for GS FIS races and Europa Cups in Val Thorens, and World Cups in Val d’Isere. The FIS races went OK for me, not quite as well as training, but I was able to put one really fast run down and ski to my points. Unfortunately because of the other boys’ injuries we had to make the decision to not race the Europa Cups or World Cups – Angus was under-trained and Ben was not skiing. On the plus side we did get to see the All Blacks live in Milan and Marseilles which was exciting!

More Racing and more bad luck!

We returned to Austria and had a short training block on the glacier because of the lack of snow in the valleys. The training was good, but we needed hard snow. We competed in some very tough FIS Super-G’s in Austria and FIS GS’s in Italy. Angus suffered a big crash in Italy and injured his knee. We were forced to return to Austria and miss 2 races, but it was good for him to see a sports doctor and get an MRI almost immediately. He has torn his hamstring and damaged his MCL/PCL. Luckily the all important ACL is still intact so he will ski again mid-January.

Our final races before Christmas were 2 Super-Gs in one day and a GS the next, to be held in Brigels, Switzerland. It was a very cool race-hill with a lot of terrain. The first Super-G was underway in windy conditions (memories of Winter Games NZ!) but the race was put on hold after number 30…and I was number 31, waiting in the start gate! After a one hour hold, the race was stopped for the day and the second Super-G cancelled. The next day the GS was also cancelled due to gale force winds. Let’s hope the run of bad luck is over!

Where to now?

January will bring FIS Super-G and GS racing in Italy and Slovenia. The Super-G racing will be important for Ben and me. At the moment I meet the discretionary Olympic criteria for Vancouver, but it would be good to get some FIS results to solidify qualification (NZ Winter Olympic Team selection date is Jan 25). Ben Griffin meets the criteria in GS but is just outside in Super-G so therefore it will be important for him too. Ben and I will also be racing the Kranjska Gora World Cup GS (Jan 30), which I am very excited about! It will be my first World Cup start and important to get the feel of a top level event again before the Olympics. It will be graphically live on the web so if I’m definitely in I will email you the link beforehand in case you want to tune in ‘live’.

If you want to send me a personal message just use cafetim@hotmail.com

Cheers everyone

Vancouver here we come!