first world cup experience

HI everybody!

Little report on my first world cup experience !

First the treatment given to world cup skiers is amazing, we had the chance to spend a week at the chateau right at the lake Louise and is was just stunning, I had never been in a 5 star hotel and that felt a kind of weird people carrying your stuff, opening your doors, etc… I was not very used to that J but it was great to have the opportunity to see that.

I was at first supposed to forerun the DH but finally didn’t happen because the spots were full, so we trained some speed in Nakiska with the women’s team, the Alberta team and the men’s team of Marocco. I was still participating in the SG on Sunday.

A couple days before hand I could already start to feel the little butterflies in my tummy coming up and the excitement to compete my first World Cup.

I was there with my trainer Shelley Johnston and Wendy Lumby who was assisting, she used to be an Olympian in 1988, used to race WC and therefore had great experience to share.

The combination of those two female coaches was hilarious, and they also made history for being the first female coaches at this level in alpine skiing. I give them my thumbs up for getting so far.

One of them keeps on attracting Italians although she refuses them and the other one keeps on attracting puppy’s lol, but that is very entertaining for me anyway.

Coming up to the world cup, I didn’t really do my mental work and got really nervous.  The mental game is the biggest issue in my skiing and affects my results at most.

I didn’t participate in the World Cup with the goal to win but specifically for experience.

We have encountered some issues with our equipment since the beginning of the season, which procured us only one pair of SG skis and therefore I had to warm up on a pair of DH skis.

It was a beautiful day out there, some flat lights and snowy but the volunteers effort on the slope paid off and kept the track in pretty good condition.

Several factors played on my result, my mental work, the lack of equipment, a small budget, the time spent on the new SG radius and the lack of experience compared to the people I am competing against.

I was nervous at the start and wasn’t really moving and then hit the jump, being the first jump taken this season it wasn’t very well handled and ended up late on the next gate, after that was to focused on that mistake that I didn’t make up for it in the following part of the course. 

To be fair when I finished I was disappointed but then I also realized with the help of my trainer it was a great experience and that this will teach me for the future, in how to handle stress and how my mental state affects my skiing, so with this we can move on and work on the factors available to us.

I thank the supporters at the start and the finish area, even if I didn’t really show my joy it is much appreciated.

This was a little gift from my trainer and Wendy for my first World Cup, thanks ladies ! 

During the inspection, picture from James Lazor and alpine ontario ! Thanks