2010: The Big Year

This year has been the biggest year of my life – and we are only halfway through the year! I competed in the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, placing 12th – and missing the chance to compete in the round of the top eight by only .01 of a second! The snowboard season wrapped up with me winning my 7th Canadian PGS title. On May 21, I got married to the love of my life, Ari Goosen, and we began the slow process of applying for his permanent residency, as he is an American. After going on a wonderful honeymoon, we celebrated our marriage at a party in New York City with friends and family that were not able to join us in Vancouver for the wedding. This past weekend, I spent at the Post Olympic Excellence Series in Lake Louise with a number of my teammates from the Canadian Olympic Team. The sharing and discussions served to cement in my mind that I am ready to retire from sport and move forward to new and different goals.

Fully inspired and energized by my fellow Olympians, I am embarking on my transition out of sport and into the work world. I am excited to be able to put my Chartered Accountant designation and my Chartered Financial Analyst education to use. My character traits and skills that helped me to become a two-time Olympian will serve me well as I find and begin a new job.

I still love sport and I am convinced that sport helps to build the foundation for a strong and happy life. I also believe that Track and Field skills are the foundation for nearly every sport. With that in mind, I am pleased to be assisting Avril Douglas, 400m World Record holder, to deliver the Track Rascals Program to children aged 6 – 8. The program will be offered through the Kajaks Track and Field Club in Richmond and is scheduled from July 19 – August 18 on Monday and Wednesday evenings. For more information, please call: 604-241-9094.

Thank you for sharing my 2010 Journey with me! It is time for me to begin a new chapter in my life and I look forward to sharing that with you too!

I am very excited to be getting married on Friday May 21st to the love of my life, Ari Goosen. We are both pleased to be able to invite the students of Homma elementary and their parents to join us at the wedding ceremony at St. Joseph the Worker Church on Williams Road in Richmond at 4 pm.

This is an open event and all are welcome!

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