February 9th 2009
Well what a week! One of the more difficult weeks I have endured! It started with a foot of snow in London, therefore Heathrow shut down and all flights into or out of London were cancelled for the whole day. So out came the insurance policy and off I set to find the cheapest flight via anywhere other than London I could. There were massive queues everywhere but I managed to buy a KLM flight online, which happened to be the same one as Em. I am not sure whether it was just being run down or all the sprawling across the floor at Geneva airport trying to book flights online, read insurance policies, while moving up in the queue or what but I had a bad head cold that made my head feel like it was going to burst on the aeroplane and my ears as if they were at completely different levels.
We arrived in Vancouver and were put up at a very nice hotel in downtown Vancouver! After a pretty rough sleep, and some serious jet lag, We went out the following day for training. The conditions were very warm, about plus 5 and sunny. The course was a bit different to normal. A lot of features about 14 jumps, berms and a lot to think about. Some of the jumps were pretty big and due to the slow snow it was difficult to gain enough speed to make the landings. We had a second day of training and went out for qualifications the following day.
Qualification went quite well, there was one corner table jump at the bottom that I just couldn’t clear, but other than that it was alright. I skied into 27th position and had qualified for the finals. I went to pick my race skis up at the bottom and couldn’t believe what I saw…a huge chunk out of my base, right down to the core about 6 cm long! I had obviously hit a big rock in the course or at least landed on it. I was pretty annoyed about it, and after seeking some help from a few technicians I was off to get it fixed asap, as I only had 2 pairs of skis and the training pair was in pretty bad condition from general use! When I got back to the hotel, Coni one of the Swiss guys offered to help fix it and he glued it up and did a great job of it! I went out for finals the following day. The finals started at 1pm so the course had had the sun on it for hours. It was really wet and slow and the landings didn’t hold up very well, there were troughs in most of them. Em was in the first heat and I was in the third heat. After Em’s heat had left I heard over the radio at the top, “racer down, 2nd last jump, we’re going to need a blood wagon.” I had a bad feeling it was Em and shortly after I was notified that it was. She had injured her knee and she passed a message up via medical staff to tell me that she was OK, worried that I may not start my heat but rather get down to help her. I guess it is times like these when you really wish you had some support staff. I can’t say I felt 100% confident, Em had just been taken off in a blood wagon and I knew the landings were a bit sketchy. I guess I didn’t give it everything, I had a good start but over the first wu-tangs I just fell into 4th place and sat there. I finished in 26th position. At the bottom I ran off to get all of Em’s stuff together and got over to the medical centre asap. I spent the next hours/days helping Em get everything together, comforting her, arranging MRI and talking with her insurance, getting her to the doctor and Airport. She has done a pretty good job of it and it looks like she will be out for the rest of the season after having surgery. Get well soon Em, I miss you already! It was all quite a draining experience and a long week. I was very happy to arrive back in France for a much needed rest. I am off to Norway next and on to Sweden and Japan after that. I will be in touch!
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