Success for the Canadians

The past 2 weeks of World Cup competitions have definitely been exciting for the Canadian Team as we ramp up for World Championships in Deer Valley, Utah.  We are all fighting it out for those 4 spots for Worlds, and it is not going to be an easy fight amongst our strong team.  I am thankful that I have some podium finishes over the past 2 months to give me a comfortable approach to the last week of qualifying.

Mont Gabriel, Quebec hosted the Freestyle World Cup on January 15th and crowned Canadian Justine Dufor-LaPointe as the dual mogul champion, at a mere 16 years old!  We had eight Canadian women in the finals (top 16), so there were a lot of head to head team mate battles on the course.

For me, it was fun to push the speed on that course.  It was a fairly flat course, but the middle section was long with tight, sharp, icy moguls.  I really had to focus on staying balanced by keeping my feet under me and keeping my vision up.  I won my first dual against my team mate Alexandra, and lost my second to my other team mate Chloe to finish in 6th.  The duals format is really exciting for spectators, therefore we saw a big crowd gathered at the bottom of the course.  It was a great atmosphere. 

After the contest, I snuck off to the nearby resort of Val Saint-Come to get 2 days of private jump training time in with my coaches Darcy Downs and Jim Schiman.  it was very productive, and I have a lot more confidence about my ability now.  I really like to take those opportunities to get focused training in a quiet place.  Hard work always seems to pay off.

I am now recovering from back to back World Cup contests at Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid, NY.  The temperatures hovered in the -20C range, so being well prepared for that was key.  I packed a lot of different layers, and had to work out the timing of training and competition runs perfectly so that I did not spend too much time in the cold.  It was quite a task to keep my muscles warm and ready to fire quickly for skiing.

I am really happy about my skiiing on the Lake Placid course.  I feel like I really had to dig deep to push through some trouble sections, but my technique really came through for me when I pushed it.  I had fun in the middle section, and it makes me excited to keep pushing to ski like that at World Championships.  I finished 6th in Saturday's event, and on the podium on Sunday with a bronze medal! 

It was an amazing weekend for our team, with many athletes on the podium, and a few more just off.  The depth of our ability in Canada is really showing.  Congratulations to my team mates Audrey, Jenn, Chloe, Pierre-Alexandre, Mikael, Marc-Antoine, Alexandre and Cedric.  Nice work. 

I am super pumped about my head space in the gate this year.  I feel solid, calm, present and focused every run.  It seems that no matter what is going on around me, or what has happened leading up to my contest run, I can pull it together to be in a great space in the gate.  It is causing me to become consistent with my results, which was a big goal of mine for this season.  I haven't finished out of the top 10 yet this season, so hopefully I can keep that going!