Canada West Telemark Championships

A very fun weekend at Silver Star Mountain Resort taking in the action of the Spring Loaded Telemark Festival and the races. Being the main organizer it was nice to be able to hand most of the reigns over to Mike as the chief of race, and let it be run. Turnout was definitely not what I had hoped or planned on, but it was still positive to have a tight group of passionate Telemark skiers out for the weekend together.

The GS on saturday was a pretty tight set and with way more offset than I'm used to skiing. It was, however, very smooth and fun to ski. The first run I was skiing really well in the top section with a lot of speed but I unfortunately had a pretty big mistake below the jump which through me around, on my side, and putting me below the next gate. After a recovery that seemed to take forever, I got back onto course and finished my run. My second run was smoother, but unfortunately not faster. I ended up in second place.

The good news in being second is that I think it has provided some inspiration for Olivier Petit (first place) to look at competitively racing. Mike sparked the idea and Olivier continued speaking about it afterwards. There may be another racing for canada on the WC next yr.

 The morning of the Sprint Classic, I woke up and knew it was my race to win..and I did. A really fun course to ski, again, pretty tight, but I constantly needed to be working...hard! My first run I had the best jump I've ever done. Everything just felt smooth, I was jumping forward and pulling up and managed to get some good distance. Oh but then I fell 3 gates after the jump, loosing all of my speed, picking myself back up, and trying to gain my speed again to get back on course. The good thing is I had a strong skate!

Run 2..(i feel like I'm a broken record saying this)...I fell again. This time below the jump. It seemed to me like it was a quicker recovery but it still seemed to throw me off for the rest of the run.

Definitely a fun weekend and some great practice for my travels to Europe next week. Still lots of things to work on with my skiing but I am getting faster, more confident, ankle is stronger, and I'm still having lots of fun.