Photos from US Nationals

Here are some very cool photos taken at US Nationals by Jon Magolis! Thanks Jon!

Canadian Champs!

Yesterday was a great way to end off my season...or well almost end. We raced slalom and when all was said and done I ended up 4th (3rd Canadian). This is my best result in a while! After the slalom we all drove out to Calgary to compete in a dual slalom at Canada Olympic Park! It is a classic dual slalom...slalom radius with gs panels...two courses. It is set up so the provinces face off against each other. BC, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec are the competing provinces and it was a close race. BC lost against Alberta in the first round by one point! Ontario took out Quebec to advance to the finals against Alberta. In the finals Alberta dominated! It is a super fun atmosphere with everyone cheering and the racers having a great time! Each team was comprised of a female and male club athlete, provincial athlete, development team athlete and a world cup athlete. It was great to meet some of the young hot shots coming up! Very exciting for them and for us to race and everyone is super supportive of the younger athletes!

Tomorrow I start western spring series where my sole role is supporting the younger athletes by showing them good skiing and showing my enthusiasm for their racing! Should be really fun to hang out with the western athletes! Can't wait!

until next time!

Elli

Moving on!

So I am currently at US nationals in Lake Placid. It is amazing how "official" their nationals are! They had fireworks, autograph signing, and a band playing at their open ceremonies. At the mountain they have an official athletes lounge complete with free lunch, drinks and internet provided for the athletes! You actually feel like an elite athlete at this event.

Yesterday was a consistant day for my skiing. The weather and conditions here in lake placid are not ideal. It is was overcast yesterday and raining today. The snow is really granular and breaks down very quickly. It requires amazing amount of work to keep it in good shape. Yesterday was the type of day were starting early in the flip second run can result in amazing results ( Congrats to Maddie Irwin a young Canadian that took FULL advantage of her start second run to move from about 15th place to 6th!!). It felt good to finish but I would have like to have been in a better position than 14th. But sometimes things just don't line up.

Today we watched the boys GS. It took the course workers 4 extra hours to prep the course because of the terrible snow conditions. The snow was "rotten" it had a two inch crust on top of granular slush. I am hoping to have a good start number tomorrow as it definately played a big role in the placements today.

Devastation...fades.

Yesterday was the most devastating day I have had racing in a long time. This year I have been very consistant with my performances on the Nor-Am Circuit for slalom which led to me being second in the overall slalom standings going into the last Nor-Am race of the year. The top two at the end of the year get their own World Cup spot...thus propelling them immediately into every slalom World Cup next year. All I had to do to keep my spot was have a good finish. After first run I was sitting in 12th position which though not exactly where I wanted to be was a great start position for second run. On really warm spring days like yesterday having a great start for second run can be the best thing because you have a smoother course than the girls who were winning first run. Smoother course= faster time. The start of my second run was good. I felt like I was attacking and moving down the hill well. On the flats there were two hairpin combinations four gates apart. THe first was a delay into a hairpin and the second just a hairpin. Coming into the second hairpin I had a moment of confusion as the control gate was right in line with the end of the hairpin making it look like a flush. I screwed up royally by looking at the tracks set to make sure. Unfortunately I saw the tracks of a fore runner who had skied it as a flush and followed. This all happened within a second and as soon as I realised my mistake it was too late. I blew it. I lost my World Cup spot. Complete devastation.

After the race I ended up driving Marie-Michele Gagnon's car back to Quebec by myself which was a good opportunity for me to have some time to collect myself a bit before spending the night at Eve Routhier (my team mates) house. There was a change of plans after the race and Eve, Erin Mielzynski and myself are now heading down to US Nationals in Lake Placid before heading to Canadian Champs. I am feeling the need for some redemption.

It was my worst possible outcome for the Nor-Am series but it ended up being a great one for Canada. We took all four of the World Cup spots for Womens Tech. Marie-Michele Gagnon and Marie-Pier Prefontaine took the GS and the slalom spots went to my team mates Eve Routhier and Erin Mielzynski.

Tomorrow is another day and I am definitely going to take the opportunity to talk to my amazing sports psych Dave Freeze before continuing racing on Sunday.

Hope everyone got amazing weather this past week like we had in New Hampshire. We were playing soccer in tank tops and shorts!

Cheers,

Elli

On the road again

So after a seven day break at home (that was amazing) I am back on the road. On the 9th I flew to Quebec for a few days of training at Mont Orford. It was a great few days of sunny warm weather and good training. We then drove down to St. Johnsbury, Vermont where we are skiing at Burke Mountain. This is the speed portion of the Nor-Am Finals. I am not doing the speed events this year so I foreran the mens slalom portion of the super combined (an event where the competitors do one run of sg and one run of slalom). It was great! Good snow and I felt I skied really well! Today the girls are doing the super combined and I am going to be doing some slalom training.

Today after skiing we are heading to Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. This is where we are doing the technical side of the Nor-Am events. I am really looking forward to this!

Thanks for checking in!

Cheers,

Elli

Olympic Spirit!

Sorry it took so long for the blog! Here is my "official" thoughts.

The Olympics were an amazing experience. I was a forerunner for the women’s Alpine GS and SL events. Even though I was not officially a competitor, I had the same experience as a competitor because I still left out of the same start gate, ran the same course, went through the same finish line…just about 2 minutes ahead of everyone else. A forerunners job is to test out the course to make sure it runs well and will be fair for the racers. We still got times and if I had been a competitor my times would have put me in 33^rd position for the GS and 31^st for the Slalom. The forerunner’s job most importantly is to finish the course so you can give an accurate report on how the whole thing runs so taking chances and skiing on the edge were not really an option, as a result, I felt I skied well but not my fastest so I was satisfied with those results.

The atmosphere at the games was amazing. The crowds were jubilant and very responsive. High 5’s, the singing of national anthems, and fans in crazy garb were everywhere. The crowds’s cheered everyone on but were especially loud for the Canadians. I found the “Olympic experience” was felt upon arrival into the finish corral when you saw the amount of people watching and the spirit of the crowd. At the top of the course it felt the same as any other race. It was the same people I competed against a few weeks ago in Europe, volunteers who have been around the Canadian Ski Racing circuit for years and the same atmosphere as always. It seemed the people who stayed relaxed and didn’t stress about it being “the Olympics” were the ones coming out of top. The ones who were feeling the pressure of the games on their shoulders skied stiff as if they used every muscle in their bodies to will themselves into the top spot. It was a great experience to learn these things before actually competing in my first Olympic games.

I also feel that I really got the feel for the whole “Olympic experience”. I went a few days early before I had to forerun to watch some of the other events with my family. I was incredibly impressed with all the events I saw. Each one was exciting and incredible in its own way. We saw the Men’s Big Hill ski jump qualifications, the Women’s Cross Country 15km combined, the Men’s Two Man Bobsled and the Men’s GS Alpine race. It is incredible to watch these sports live. You can’t help but be captivated by the endurance of the women in x-country, the power and speed built up during the bobsled and the how far the ski jumpers fly. Each is more spectacular live than ever imagined when watching on TV.

Having the Olympics in our own backyard made it more accessible to Canadians and really brought the amazing spirit of the games to Canada. It allowed young athletes the chance to discover what it will be like to compete on that stage and gave young Canadian children new dreams to achieve. These games seemed to be incredibly inclusive. For instance I was a part of a large group of BC athletes that were invited to the Closing Ceremonies. The athletes included past and future Olympians. Being able to watch the closing of the biggest and most successful event in Canada with a group of high performance athletes like myself was incredible.

Hope you are having a great winter and watching the paralympics ! Canadian Josh Dueck came second yesterday in the Slalom! Congratulations!

Cheers

Elli