Three words to describe my Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic experience... Amazing, inspiring and disappointing.
On the 23rd February I headed to Cypress Mountain for my Olympic debut. The conditions changed from bright sunshine that we had all week for training, to cloudy with wet snow falls. My training had been going well all week. Along with most of the competitors I sat in the tent at the top of the course watching the live coverage of the first few competitors, if I could go back in time, I would change this... but I can't. I sat watching the first 24 competitors go down the Cypress Mountain Olympic course before deciding to get myself prepared. I started to shake while watching the other competitors and left the tent feeling breathless and stressed. I don't know why this happened, no one had put any pressure on me, and no one had any expectations of me, after all my life long dream was to get to the Olympic Games, I was living my dream, yet I put a huge amount of pressure on myself to perform just ten minutes prior to my qualification run. I don't think I will ever understand what happened that day.
I left the starting gate, missing my start, missing my pole plant, twisting sideways and barely making it over the first "Aztec wu-tang" feature. Interestingly all the competitors had spent most of their training time just practising the first two features, we had all never skied anything like them, amazingly the Canadians flew over them with no problem every run... amazing what a year of training on them will do. I lost 1.5 seconds from the winner in the first 10metres. On a good day I will be 2.5seconds behind on a full length World Cup course of 1minute8sec in length. The course in Cypress was 1.2km and I had already lost 1.5 seconds in 10metres. If that wasn't the start to a shocker...I don't know what is. I continued on down the course after a terrible start trying to catch up time. The first few features I skied well, then about a third of the way down off the big Olympic ring jump I landed long, took an indirect line and just lost all my speed heading into the flat section of the course. I unfortunately had lost my speed and couldn't do anything about it. I didn't manage to clear the jumps along the flat (which had not happened on any ofther run!!!), I had an on coming head wind and I hit the back side of the triple and the double, and then landed dead flat on the corner jump, crawling into the two final jumps. I knew I had stuffed the run up, when I saw I was 33rd with one more competitor to go, I felt disappointment, I smiled for the camera tried to appreciate my Olympic experience. But when I saw the final time on the scoreboard, that is when I just fell into a heap. The time was really slow, slower than I could even imagine. I had never been that far out in my life... why did it have to be on the one day I have worked towards for 14 years when the whole world is watching???
I finished the event in 34th position. I was totally disappointed as I had been so competitive at the events coming into the Olympics. I think my result was a representation of what I had endured physically, mentally and emotionally in my journey to the Olympic Games but I guess I had hoped it might all finally fall into place, and instead it was quite the opposite. Everyone keeps trying to remind me I am one of only 35 women in the world who qualified for the Olympic Games for ski cross. I know I travelled a different journey to most, I know how hard I worked to get there, and then I got there and it was satisfying. But for a result that bad to come along and crush that dream which I managed to achieve, it is pretty devastating. I spent a lot of the following days in Vancouver punishing myself over it. It is easy to say snap out of it and appreciate what you have achieved...but I guess you always want more. I don't think I will ever be satisfied with my Olympic experience, I am better than that, but maybe one day I will be able to appreciate the hard journey in achieving my dream.
After days of devastation, I was pretty pleased to have achieved swapping my GB pins for an official pin from all 17 nations that competed in ladies ski cross. My collection is complete.
The closing ceremony was was a great event. I would describe it as organised chaos, but it was enjoyable. Last night we had a final athletes party in the athletes lounge in the Vancouver village. After punishing myself all week and not hitting the town at all, I decided to give it a go. I thought it wasn't going to happen after enjoying a cup of tea with Chio at mid night. We gave it one last shot and thankfully I felt a change and we danced into the early morning. I managed to swap a number of pieces of clothing that night - a Czech Republic pyjama top, Swiss furry jacket, Swedish T-shirt and a Danish Curling top (I tried my heart out to get the men's Norwegian curling pants with colourful diamonds all over them, but he refused! He said it was because he had to do media stuff upon his return... I wasn't convinced...all in all, my outfit was incomplete). Overall a good night and finally a smile on my face. I have really enoyed the company of my GB Freestyle team mates Sarah Ainsworth (aerials) and Ellie Koyander (moguls). It has been a great experience for the three of us and I look forward to reuniting at the next major freestyle event.
Team GB departs the village today. We will set off for a final team lunch on the water, before heading to Vancouver airport and flying back to Heathrow. It has been fantastic to meet so many athletes from other sports.
I have extended my trip to try and finish the remainder of the ski cross season, I just haven't had a chance to enjoy myself this season and I need to remember why I do this sport, why I love this sport and why I enjoy this sport. I can't say I feel good at the moment, but hopefully after another month of events I will. Then back to University to play catch up and hope to knock a few more subjects off the list. My next goal is to complete my University degree by the end of 2010. An Olympic Games and a degree in one year would be pretty pleasing. I am now in the process of trying to realise my next life goal. I will be in touch soon.
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