Special Olympics Ski Racing - The Dream and the Plan

So the BC Special Olympic Provincial Winter Games are now over - Cory's second competition ever, and he wins 3 bronze medals in the top Advanced level. With the medals around his neck, he picked one up and with a slightly disappointed look on his face said to me "this probably isn't enough to get me to the Nationals, is it?"



Now it takes a few weeks for the final results to be announced, but he was right. It wasn't enough to get him the the Special Olympics National Winter Games in Quebec City in February 2008.



But he had accomplished a lot - he had set a goal for himself to be good enough to make it to the top Advanced level (there are 2 or 3 divisions within Advanced), and he had done that. And he beat all but 2 of the racers in that division. And you can tell from the photos taken during the medal presentation just how pleased and proud he was.




So a night or two later, during dinner with me and his mum, Cory started talking about having met the gold medallist that it would be great to be a gold medallist too and go to the nationals and maybe even the world championships. And that was the beginning of the dream.

That night, we started working on a plan, what it would take to put Cory in the best position to win gold at the next Special Olympics BC Provincial Winter Games in 2011, and represent BC at the National Games in 2012, and maybe even represent Canada at the World Games in 2013.


Together, we've identified 4 areas to work on: weight and fitness training, better equipment, better coaching, and more race experience. And while he missed gold in Super G by just 62/100ths of a second, he missed gold by over 2 seconds in Slalom, and nearly 3 seconds in Giant Slalom - so there is a lot of work to be done if he is to get to the top of the podium in 2011.

Next up, putting the plan into action: the search for better coaching leads to Mount Hood, Oregon in July 2007.