After a disappointing World Cup result in Nendaz, SUI, where I placed 25th, and an even more disappointing World Cup result in Stoneham, where I fell in my first run, got up and continued riding, only to miss the last gate and get disqualified, I still qualified for the Canadian Olympic team! The team was announced in Quebec City with much fanfare, including a deejay and a smoke and light show to introduce the 2010 team to the media!

I left Quebec feeling good and went home for a few days where I visited Homma elementary school, chatted with a few television and radio stations and managed to find and buy my wedding dress!

Buoyed by my successful dress-shopping excursion, I left Vancouver again to join the team in Bend, Oregon. Mt. Bachelor, a short 30 min drive from Bend, is one of the best places to snowboard or ski. There is a great variety of terrain and typically lots of great snow! This trip was no exception. Our first day of training, it was snowing and by the next day, the sun was shining and the grooming looked fantastic!

Of course, as our luck would have it, by race day, today, the snow was falling and the wind was howling. The racecourse was set out of the wind, but the top bit of the chairlift ride was an arctic adventure unto itself.

We raced the PGS today. I qualified second after getting hooked up in a heelside turn and looping wide out into the powder next to the race line.

In the finals, I raced Ivanna Trudel – an ex racer from Quebec who is making a bit of a comeback. Then I went against up and comer Megan Farrell – cousin of my teammate Pat Farrell. Finally I met up with Kimi in the semifinal. Kimi looked like she was going to beat me until she made a big mistake two gates from the finish, allowing me to move onto the big final where I faced of against Caro. Caro fell in the first run which gave me the full penalty advantage moving into our last run and she was not able make up any time on me and I took home the gold! For sure this was our best race ever, with me in first, Caro second, Kimi third and Arianne our rookie in fourth – we completely shut the Americans out of the podium!

In the men’s side: Michael was first, Chris Klug from the USA second and Jasey third – so, it wasn’t a total Canadian domination, but there is always tomorrow when we will race a two run GS at Bachelor.

Hi!

After a disappointing World Cup result in Nendaz, SUI, where I placed 25^th, and an even more disappointing World Cup result in Stoneham, where I fell in my first run, got up and continued riding, only to miss the last gate and get disqualified, I still qualified for the Canadian Olympic team!  The team was announced in Quebec City with much fanfare, including a deejay and a smoke and light show to introduce the 2010 team to the media!

I left Quebec feeling good and went home for a few days where I visited Homma elementary school, chatted with a few television and radio stations and managed to find and buy my wedding dress! 

Buoyed by my successful dress-shopping excursion, I left Vancouver again to join the team in Bend, Oregon.  Mt. Bachelor, a short 30 min drive from Bend, is one of the best places to snowboard or ski.  There is a great variety of terrain and typically lots of great snow!  This trip was no exception.  Our first day of training, it was snowing and by the next day, the sun was shining and the grooming looked fantastic!

Of course, as our luck would have it, by race day, today, the snow was falling and the wind was howling.  The racecourse was set out of the wind, but the top bit of the chairlift ride was an arctic adventure unto itself.

We raced the PGS today.  I qualified second after getting hooked up in a heelside turn and looping wide out into the powder next to the race line. 

In the finals, I raced Ivanna Trudel – an ex racer from Quebec who is making a bit of a comeback.  Then I went against up and comer Megan Farrell – cousin of my teammate Pat Farrell.  Finally I met up with Kimi in the semifinal.  Kimi looked like she was going to beat me until she made a big mistake two gates from the finish, allowing me to move onto the big final where I faced of against Caro.  Caro fell in the first run which gave me the full penalty advantage moving into our last run and she was not able make up any time on me and I took home the gold!  For sure this was our best race ever, with me in first, Caro second, Kimi third and Arianne our rookie in fourth – we completely shut the Americans out of the podium!

In the men’s side: Michael was first, Chris Klug from the USA second and Jasey third – so, it wasn’t a total Canadian domination, but there is always tomorrow when we will race a two run GS at Bachelor.

Cheers,

Alexa

Nendaz 2010

Following the great race in Austria, we drove a million hours – or, at least it felt like a million hours to drive our gutless rental car to Leysin, Switzerland where we trained for a couple of days.  Leysin is quite close to Montreux, which made for a nice day trip for us on our day off.  Once the sun came out, the views were amazing and the snow was perfect and we made some great strides in our snowboarding.

One of our highlights in Leysin was a team dinner at the Fromagerie, where we enjoyed a traditional raclette: melted cheese on potatoes and cured meats.   After dinner, the real show started.  There is a guy who makes the cheese right there in the restaurant!  He put 280 litres of milk into a gigantic copper cauldron and put it over the fire.  Michael was tasked with stirring the milk until it was exactly 55 degrees Centigrade (about 35 minutes later).  Then they put some enzyme in the hot milk to create the curds.  After scooping the curds into cheesecloth and packing it up, they pressed the excess fluid out of it with a huge log contraption and Voila!  Cheese! They cure the cheese for at least a year before it is ready to be served and then it is returned to the restaurant and fed to the guests.

After the great training in Leysin, we trekked a couple of hours to Nendaz – just east of Verbier.  Nendaz hosted a Europa Cup event and will be hosting a World Cup this coming Sunday.

We thought it would be great training to race the Europa Cup, as both races are on the same run.  Pretty much all of the girls who race World Cup were in the race and the event was quite stacked and pretty much a World Cup without the points or the prize money.  But seeing as I race for fun, I was keen to go.

Kimi had great qualifying runs, winning the qualifiers.  I was not so fired up and managed to qualify 9^th and Caro qualified 10^th.

In my first round of the finals, I raced against Isabella Laboeck from Germany.  She has been racing well lately, but I beat her in both runs and moved on to the quaterfinals to race her teammate, Anke Karstens.  Anke had just beaten Kimi, so I felt no remorse when I beat her and moved onto the semifinals.

In the semifinals, I raced against Selina Joerg, also from Germany.  My first run against Selina, I laid down a pretty good first run.  In my second run against her, she made a huge mistake and hit the wrong side of the gate.  The wrong side of the gate is fixed quite well into the ground and is not very forgiving when you crash into it.  Just as she crashed, I made a mistake too.  I looped out of the course.  I thought I would have enough direction to carve around and make it to the next gate and keep going.  I did, kind of.  I did carve into the powder at the edge of the course, but the fence was a little closer than I thought!  My board slid under the netting of the fencing and my body was still on the inside of the fence!  “Uh oh!” I thought, “This is going to hurt.”  Then my hip made contact with the fence post – which was a slim stick holding the net fencing in place.  The post popped out of the ground!  I kept going and took out another post!  Amazed that I was still on my feet and moving, I carved back into the course and finished the race!  Selina was not able to catch me and I moved onto the Big Final while she went to the small final.

I got to the top to race for the gold and guess who I should meet?  Nicolien Sauerbreij from the Netherlands – the girl who beat me last week!  She got a free pass in her semifinal round as Michelle Gorgone from the USA got injured and dropped out of the race – so Nicolien was fresh and ready to go.  In the first run, I rode hard and I beat Nicolien by about half a second.  In my second run, however, I made a mistake on a heelside early in the course and lost a lot of speed.  I tried to make it up by charging hard.  I moved into a toeside turn, hit some ice and ended up on my face – with snow caked into my helmet to boot!  I got up but there was no chance to catch her and I had to concede first place to Nicolien for a second race in a row.  But second was pretty good training for the World Cup this Sunday!

Michael brought home his first Continental Cup victory!  Jasey rounded out our podium by finishing third, while Kimi was 9^th and Caro was 13^th.

We kicked off the January World Cups by boarding the planes in Canada on the 31st of December. The plane was delayed, so, when we boarded the plane, the captain greeted us with a cheerful, “It is 2 am in Frankfurt. Happy New Year!” – So much for ringing in 2010 with a bang.

Our first World Cup was in Kreischberg, Austria near the town of Murau – about two hours southeast of Salzburg. The town has a brewery that is 800 years old. Although, it was just as well that they were not offering tours, as we had to race.

I love racing in Kreischberg. This was the first place I ever won prize money in a World Cup – way back in 2002 in a World Cup Snowboardcross. I also qualified for my first Sport Canada funding in 2003 by finishing in the top 16 at World Championships! So, my feelings for this race hill are very positive. The race hill itself has a bit of terrain: with a gentle slope onto flat, then dropping over a sharp knoll back onto flat and then dropping over another knoll into the finish line. The snow is usually firm, dense man-made snow – this is my favourite as I am a pretty powerful rider and I like to push hard on my board and the hard snow holds the edge and helps me to generate speed.

As I had done quite badly in the last few World Cups, my World Cup ranking had dropped (it is the cumulative points from all of my World Cup results in the season) and I was starting out of the top seed: bib 21, to be exact.

The course had big turns, which require a lot of lateral movement and strong carving, and a number of rhythm changes, which require a smart approach to the course – this course was designed for me! I took my first qualification run and rode well, finishing 3rd in my course. After the second qualification run, I went into the finals ranked third.

First round of the qualifications, I beat Tomoka Takeuchi from Japan in both runs. Moving into the quarterfinal, I beat Heidi Neururer from Austria in both runs to move me into the semifinal where I faced her teammate Marion Kreiner. I beat Marion in the first run by the full penalty of 1.5 seconds. Then in our next run against each other, I made some crazy mistakes by trying to straighten out my line too much. Four gates from the finish, I was on my butt and Marion was a little bit ahead of me. I stood up, carved the third to last gate and ripped past the last two gates to beat Marion and move on to the Big Final! As we turned and watched the replay of the last few gates, Marion saw how I tore up the last three gates and beat her across the finish line and yelled, “Scheise!” (I will let you guess the translation.)

Then came the Big Final, racing for the gold. I was against Nicolien Sauerbreij from the Netherlands. She is a tough competitor and I managed to let that rattle me. I did not stick to the line through the gates that had been working for me all day, rather I tried to run a straighter line, which got me into trouble and forced me to make some mistakes. She beat me in both runs and took the gold, while I posted my best result ever and came home with the silver and a lesson learned.

Jasey brought home his second World Cup victory in a row, Caro finished 16th and Ekaterina, one of the up-and comers, finished 18th. At least we rang in the first World Cup of the year with a bang!

The Canadian team wrapped up one of the coldest training camps I have ever been to. We trained for six day in Panorama under blue skies and -30 temperatures. Despite the cold weather, we managed to make some improvements in preparation for the two World Cups in Telluride, Colorado.

Telluride, Colorado is in the southwest of the state and has a cool town, great snow and fabulous terrain. We arrived in a snowstorm that dumped 25 cm on the resort and then on our third day we were treated to blue skies and beautiful snow conditions. Our first World Cup was held on Tuesday of this week. I rode cleanly but not fast enough to qualify for the finals, posting a disappointing 25th place. My teammates, on the other hand, had some great results, with Matt bringing home the Gold, Kimi taking third and Jasey and Michael placing 5th and 6th respectively.

I had a chance to redeem myself today with a second World Cup event in Telluride. I was feeling great and rode hard – unfortunately, the conditions called for a gentler style of riding than I was throwing down. Once again I placed a disappointing 25th place. Once again, my teammates pulled through, with Jasey taking the gold ahead of Michael, while Caro finished a respectable 9th place. Matt unfortunately broke his arm in the first run of the qualification and did not get a chance to repeat his performance from earlier in the week.

Despite a few hiccups, the Canadian team had a great week in Telluride.

Now we are packing up the cars and heading home for Christmas before more World Cup action resumes in the New Year!

Merry Christmas!

The tricky thing about snowboarding is that we are fully dependent upon the weather. This week we were supposed to go to Europe for two Europa Cup competitions and one World Cup. The snow situation in Limone, Italy, the site for the World Cup, was so poor (read: nonexistent) that the race was canceled. Our coaches had a pretty good idea that the World Cup would get canceled, so they changed our schedule and saved us from taking a needless trip to Europe.

You might think that a trip to Europe would be a good thing, but when you are trying to stay fit and healthy for the Olympics, and extra 20 hours of flying and a 9 hour time change is not the optimal thing to do.

Rather than going to Europe, we stayed home for an extra few days. For the first time in two years, I rode my freestyle board in the glorious sunshine at Whistler! It was great to spend a bit of time with my family and cruise around the mountain together. I took my first ride on the new Peak-to-Peak gondola – a must do on a sunny day! In the afternoons I hit the gym.

Hi!

Just wanted to share with you how excited I am about the Olympics being only 6 months away!

I have just spent the last month in Whistler training twice a day with my trainer Lucinda Thomson.  Hours in the gym, on my bike and on the trampoline have left me fit and ready to hit the slopes next week when we head to Mt. Hood, Oregon for some on-snow training!

I am also excited to tell you about my new sponsors:  Kin’s Farm Market!  Kin’s has created a reuseable shopping bag with a picture of me on it.  Drop by a Kin’s and pick one up for $1.  All proceeds will go to support my training.  I will be at the 2 and Blundell location this Saturday from 1 – 2:15 autographing the bags and cutting cake.  Come on out!

This month, I also signed with Team VISA who is helping me out both financially and with some personal help in the form of Team VISA mentors!  Kurt Browning and Nathalie Lambert are my mentors and they are available to help me out with any questions or concerns that I might have leading up to the games.

Check out the shot of me on the trampoline:  so flipping exciting!!!

Regards,
Alexa

Whew!  I think my season is finally over!  After the last World Cup in March, we traveled to Tremblant, Quebec to battle the elements and each other for the North American and Canadian Champion titles.  Several years ago, someone came up with the great idea to combine Canadian and US nationals to make one big race with better points, more competition and hopefully better prize money that was more economical for the racers to attend.  With one event, we could crown a US Champ, a Canadian Champ, a Canadian Junior Champ and the North American Champ!  This year, they also added the dubious distinction of a “Canadian Master’s Champion” for the racers over 30 (like me) in order to motivate “older” racers to keep racing.

I knew that I was tired after a long season because when I arrived in Tremblant and looked in my bags, I realized that I had forgotten to pack a speed suit!  Even after all of these years of racing, I still make some rookie mistakes.  Because of the warm weather and the rain, the conditions were extremely tricky, with soft sections, icy sections and sections with ugly chunks of ice to negotiate.  The combination of fatigue and tough conditions meant that I would have to dig deep within myself to come up with the drive and the skills to be successful in Tremblant.

During my first qualification run in the PGS event, I looked up and watched the course worker slide through the finish line ahead of me in my course!  When I got to the bottom, the timing lady was writing down the times and she wrote down a time of 28 seconds for me!  The next best girl had a time of 32.34!  All of the girls gasped.  The timing lady said, “Yeah, Alexa, she is fast, eh?”  I knew that I had had a good run, but it wasn’t 4 seconds better than the next girl good.  The volunteers checked the timing tape and determined that my time was in fact a 32.62.  That was more like it.  After all, Jasey-Jay posted a first run qualifying time of 29 seconds to win the men’s side – there was no way that I had beaten him.

We rode and we rode, battling each other through the rounds of the finals and battling the challenging snow conditions.  Jasey and I were able to draw on our years of experience to deal with the conditions and win our respective PGS races!

Jasey and I drew on our experience and our love of snowboarding the following day to have repeat performances and win the PSL event.

Following the Championships, I flew to Copper Colorado to participate in the USASA Nationals.  This event is more of a recreational/developmental series that culminates in Nationals at Copper.  I was lucky enough to be able to attend and meet some of the 1400 competitors in the event.  USASA Nationals has an “Open” category that I raced in as well as age group categories ranging from 7 years old to over 70.  A woman was on the chair lift with me, she turned to me and said, “I am a Kahuna!”  I looked at her and blinked surprised.  “I am in the 50 plus category!” she clarified.  I was so impressed to see how many people were in Copper to compete in the GS, slalom, halfpipe, snowboardcross and slopestyle events and how well the event was run.

After winning one event and coming in second in another event, I spent my week in Copper forerunning for some of the other races and watching the up-and-coming kids and being inspired by the excitement of the adults.  The adults invariably came through the finish line whooping for the joy of snowboarding!   

Following the USASA event, I returned to Vancouver and joined my team in a training camp at Cypress Mountain.  We had a variety of weather, which gave us an opportunity to test every snow condition that we might have thrown at us during the Olympics and develop some good feelings.  We also had some new equipment technology that we tested out in order to help us get one step ahead of the competition for 2010!

Check out the shot of me on the North American podium with my teammate Kimi and US riders: Lynn Ott and Erica Mueller!

Regards,
Alexa

Hi from the last stop on this season’s World Cup circuit.

The La Molina event wrapped up and the Canadian team joined the World Cup migration and flew to Milan, picked up a rental car and headed to Valmalenco in the Italian Alps for the World Cup Finals.  We took the scenic route and drove along Lake Como and stopped for lunch in Como, hoping to catch a glimpse of George Clooney who supposedly has a home there.  We had no success on the celeb-sighting mission, but we did enjoy the best pasta lunch ever!

The town of Valmalenco is nestled in the mountains and welcomed us with open arms and a parade through the main square.  

I received word from Kessler, my board builder, that the replacement board had been made for me to replace the board broken by Swiss Air on the way over to Europe was ready.  It was being shipped to a post office in Brusio, Switzerland, an hour drive from Valmalenco.  The Italian-speaking region of Switzerland observes Catholic holidays – such as the feast of San Giuseppe.  I found this out the hard way after I drove the hour to the Post Office in Switzerland, only to find that it was closed that Thursday in honor of San Giuseppe (Saint Joseph).  The ironic thing is: is that Kessler had sent me the closing dates of the Swiss post offices, but for 2008 and I got it wrong!  

So, the next morning, I got up early and retraced my steps back to Switzerland and finally got my new board.  That day, I managed to pick up my new board, convince Luka to tune it for me, get up the mountain, train and still have time to catch the finals of the Snowboardcross event and watch my teammates: Maelle and Dominique take 1st and 2nd in the women’s race.

Sarah Conrad rounded out the medal haul by bringing home 3rd in the Halfpipe event.

The last event of the Finals was the PGS race.  The slope was perfect, the snow was perfect and the sun was shining.  I had a solid first run and placed fourth in my course.  On my second qualifying run, I chattered out on a toeside turn, but still managed to qualify in 13th position.  

In the finals we had: Caro, Jasey, Matt, Michael and me racing for Canada.  I went up against Doris Guenther, the World Cup Champion in the first round of the finals.  First run: I charged out of the gate and raced her all the way to the finish, but was .17 seconds behind her.  For our second run against each other, I caught Doris by having a great start going for broke.  I kept pace with her until I slid out on a heelside turn.  I recovered quickly and raced after her, but I could not catch her before the finish line.  Finishing .38 seconds behind her, I had to concede defeat, settle for 13th place and cheer on my teammates.

Caro carved up a storm and rode like a runaway freight train!  She managed to beat everyone, except for Germany’s Amelie Kober.  We were thrilled for Caro as she stood on her first World Cup podium in Second place!  Our whole women’s team managed to get on the podium this year!  

Jasey had some impressive runs against some extremely driven competitors.  In the semi-final round, Jasey raced Austria’s Sigi Grabner and World Cup points leader.  At the World Cup Finals, the person who had the best season (measured by their cumulative points won in the season) wins the crystal globe and is crowned the World Cup Champion.  Sigi needed to finish in the top 4 to be assured of winning the globe.  In their first run against each other, Sigi beat Jasey by .03 seconds.  In the second run, they tied!  Because Jasey had made up the time difference, he was awarded the win!  Because of the great course and the great snow conditions, the riders could really push their limits.  It is really impressive to see the best riders in the world pulling out all of the stops in a head-to-head race!  Jasey went on to win the finals and take his 3rd victory of the season and improve his World Cup ranking to earn him 3rd place on the overall ranking!

Lots of podium pictures and cheering and finally our World Cup season was at an end!  Now we have a week off before the team reconvenes in Temblant, Quebec for the North American and Canadian Championships, where I will be defending my titles.

Check out the shots:
Opening ceremonies at World Cup Finals
Me with my lucky charm: made by a Tomekichi Homma student.

Regards,

Alexa

After a much needed week break from the rigors of the World Cup Circuit, we reconvened the team in Barcelona, Spain.  Spain is one of the rare stops on the tour where we actually get to spend a little time in a big city.  We took the opportunity to check out some of the Gaudi art and architecture, such as the Sagrada Familia cathedral that Barcelona is known for.  We also did a little shopping and Kimi managed to sniff out some amazing bargains in the Gothic old town.  

As a treat for us, and a great way to help overcome the jetlag, the coaches took us sailing on a catamaran!  The sunshine and the salt air was the sure cure for the time change – although, poor Jasey did not fare so well with the seasickness that the open water swells induced in him.

We loaded a bus and took the two-hour trip into the Pyrenees Mountains that divide France and Spain and arrived at La Molina.  The resort of La Molina boasts a variety of great terrain and tonnes of sunshine.  It is an interesting blend of old and new, with old stone buildings and modern new hotels. From our hotel window, I could see an old stone farmhouse and a few grazing animals – a nice, pastoral foil to the hustle of the ski resort.

Race day was sunny and warm with no need for jackets, but lots of concern over sun exposure and dehydration.  Our coaches had so much water and sports drink in their packs that they seemed to slosh as they made their way to the top of the course.

La Molina is our steepest race – or at least the first 7 gates are the steepest on the tour.  The trick was to ride the steep pitch with a bit of care and then charge across the flat bottom section.  Unfortunately, a lot of riders thought that their work was over after the pitch and ended up making race-ending mistakes in the flats.

My first run, I made a mistake on the pitch, which cost me a lot of time.  I still managed to qualify for a second run.  Unfortunately, I was not able to make up my deficit from the first run and I had to settle for a disappointing 21st place finish.  I would like to blame it on my board: which was a loaner from Kimi, as mine had all been severely damaged by Swiss Air on the flight to Europe, but I have to admit that the loaner board was fine and the mistakes were all mine.

We were excited for Caro who qualified for the finals for the first time since her ACL reconstruction last year and finished 7th!

Matt and Jasey were once again representing the Canadian men in the finals.  Jasey showed us how fast his new haircut was by winning the men’s event in an impressive display of speed and power.  As Matt described Jasey’s runs, “Jasey is showing no respect to this course with the way he is carving it up!”  Matt finished in a respectable 8th place.

Following La Molina, we are off to Italy for the World Cup finals.

Check out the photos:

Jasey with his prizes.  Give that old dog: Jasey a bone!  (A ham bone – cured pork leg is a local Catalan specialty.)

International Girls’ Night Out: Joanna (AUS), Ilona (FIN), Kimi and Alexa (CAN)

Me in La Molina – sporting my signed Tomekichi Homma Elementary sweatshirt.

Regards,
Alexa