Special Olympics Ski Racing - Getting Serious

Ok, so now we know all about Dad's first time on skis, and Cory's had some early success in ski racing. On to the Provincial Games in February 2007.

One of the challenges that Cory faces is the lack of opportunity to race. Special Olympics gives Cory the opportunity to ski regularly throughout the winter, but there's a big difference between skiing and ski racing - think driving to the mall versus Nascar! But there's only one race event per year, and some years there hasn't even been that.

So every Monday night in the winter he skis, but he can only practice racing when weather and snow conditions are good, and the volunteers are willing to build a course. So last winter, leading up to the Provincial Games, we started making some noise about needing more opportunity to ski through a race course. That "noise" created a lot of conflict with the volunteers, but lo and behold, we had a race course set up on many nights last winter. We all know that sometimes you just have to be a pain in someone's you-know-what to get action. And I was prepared to be just that pain to get Cory more experience.

We also started looking around for race courses that are available to the public. We found one on Big White near Kelowna - about a 5 hour drive from home. So we planned a 2-day trip but it turned out that the only days we could make it the race course was closed.

I emailed Big White and explained the situation and thanks to Blair Ireland at Big White, Cory had a course all to himself for a day. It was the first of many situations where good people came forward to help Cory. Our thanks to Blair!

We have since found another on Whistler Blackcomb, and Cory plans to get there this coming winter, but more about that later.

The other challenge is the cost of equipment. Skis and boots can be very expensive and Cory needed a better set of skis to race with. So we shopped around, and thanks to Justin at our local Sportchek, Cory got himself a pretty good set of skis at a reasonable price.

We then considered a ski racing suit, but decided against it for now since no other members of his team had one. We learned later though that most of Cory's competitors wore one.

We also made a second 2-day trip to Kelowna, this time skiing where the Provincial Games were to take place, Crystal Mountain - just to get familiar with the hill and the terrain where the races would take place.

Yet another challenge was to get Cory better coaching. Of course, I had never ski-raced in my life so that best I could do was watch it on TV and help Cory improve his technique that way. With Cory's autism, he has difficulty watching something to learn how to do it, so we both watch and then I try to break down what we are seeing into specific body motions or actions that I then have him try. Communication can be difficult at times and it can be frustrating for us both. I remember one time telling him to use his downhill ski more, and he told me that they were BOTH downhill skis! Those with autism sometimes take things more literally, so while I meant the ski that was further down the hill than the other, he believed that both skis were downhill skis since that's exactly what they were! Once we figure these things out, we move on.

So there we are, getting pretty serious about all this, but with a few challenges in the way, for sure.

Next, the Provincial Winter Games.