April Randomness

In march I skied my last international races of the season in France but my national race season wasn’t finished yet. This season they added an adaptive category to some of the national races in the indoor circuit. The first race I managed to win, which wasn’t that big of a deal considering a lack of competition but still nice.

Sunday we ski the second race and the third race is in May which I won’t ski…. Because in May I’ll be in Canada! This summer I’ll be interning in Vancouver general hospital for my scientific training period (as it’s called at the university) for more information about that see www.annikainvancouver.blogspot.com

But interning won’t be all I do when I’m in Canada, because off course I arranged for some ski training and I’ll be doing lots of other stuff. But this is the skiing blog J

I have arranged for ski training at the Whistler mountain ski club, they have 4 day summer camps during the weekends, I will do the one in May and 2 or 3 in July. Hopefully I can stay with a family during those weekends, that would be very nice.

These camps off course aren’t cheap so I’m happy to announce that I got the funding for these camp from a great organization in the Netherlands. They are called Topsport met zonder handicap, which means top sport with(out) disability. The foundation is founded by Marije Smits she used to be active in para-athletics and she is also a med student. Marije competed in 3 paralympic games (Athens, Beijing and London), and she has founded her own foundation to encourage talents with ambitions and goals. Just take a look at their website (it’s in Dutch) www.topsportmetzonderhandicap.nl

I’m also still training at the indoor slope in Landgraaf before I leave for Canada. Saturday I had a very good training, my skiing felt so much better, much easier in slalom, I have struggled a bit in slalom lately but things seem to go a lot better. I got a big help with this improvement because I was bootfitted by Patrick Rademakers from ski center edelweiss. He adjusted my boots so my feet are in a more natural position which means I can turn the ski easier, it takes less strength.

Well that’s it for now, will check back later!

My first Whistler camp is May 17-20

March: Chamrousse French nationals

March 18-21 I went to Chamrousse France for the open French national championships. On Sunday, March 17, I flew from Rotterdam to Grenoble where I was picked up by the team. They had trained two days in Tignes. That night it snowed a lot, more than 60 cm of fresh snow. Monday we started with a slalom race. The first run wasn’t great, the circumstances were heavy with the fresh snow, still I finished 2^nd with a big lead over number 3 and 4, my direct competitors. Marie Bochet from France was far a head in first place, she is also the number 1 in the world. The second run was much better for me and I was able to expand my lead and finished second in the first race. 

 playing in the gym

The second day we skied slalom again, this time I had some bad luck in the first run, there was a Snowboarder next to me all the trainers were shouting at him and I lost my concentration.  I finished third for that run but I wasn’t that far behind. Second run I made a big mistake on the flat part my shin guards sort of got stuck together and I almost crashed. Ultimately I came in third. But despite that my gap with nr1 was smaller than the day before.

After slalom it was time for 2 days of GS.  Due to the soft conditions, the giant slalom race moved to the slope where we skied slalom. This initiated a short giant slalom with a flat start and steep hanging finish. On Wednesday the first part was set pretty fast and I was able to tuck the whole flat part. In the middle part I came a little bit late in my line a few times, but I had a good first run. I finished 2^nd with a lead of a second over number 3. The second run was better than the first run and I finished in second. I finished second overall that day so I was faster than women in the other categories (blind and sitting respectively), they use a factor to compare all the different categories that’s needed to calculate the race penalty. Finishing second overall was  a decent performance especially since I was ranked 7^th in that field. 

And then it was time for the last race of the season. Unfortunately the race calendar was somewhat limited for me this year because I did not qualify for worldcup (yet). I could have gone to Switzerland after these races for the Swiss championships, actually I should have done it for my GS points, unfortunately it wasn’t logistically possible.

The last race, again giant slalom after my good feeling of the day before I wanted to repeat that. Although I didn’t made any big mistakes, I was just slow, the GS was a lot more turny with a tight line, it was a bit difficult for me. After the first run I sat in second with 0.15 seconds lead over number 3 and 0.5 sec lead over number 4, my direct competitors. Unfortunately I could not hold on to my lead during second run and I finished fourth, just 0.25 seconds off the podium. 

Marie Bochet won all the races with a big lead but behind her we had  a fight for the podium. After the race I went back to Grenoble airport, Airport Security and I reached a new low, not only did I had to remove my pants (I consider that normal now) but now I also had to remove my orthotic and they put it in the scanner. But my leg continued to beep at the metal detector so they wanted to see some x-rays after a little discussion they let me trough just in time for my flight. I prefer the body scan that saves a lot of time. After all I arrived home at 6pm, tight schedule but great that it worked out.