Another Season - Another Sport

It's now early October, the air's definitely chillier after a nice, warm, dry September, but it's still too soon for any snow on the local mountains.

But we have some news, not about Cory's skiing, but about a different sport that he is also involved with - 5 pin bowling. Now for those of you from outside of Canada, this is a sport that is unique to our country. Five pin bowling uses - yes, you guessed it - 5 pins rather than the usual 10. The pins are larger than the pins used in 10 pin, but the same lanes are used and the pins are spaced further apart. The bowling ball is also much smaller than the one used in 10 pin.

Cory has been bowling for several years and his average is around 190 - 200, which is actually quite good. He has bowled a number of 300+ games, including a remarkable 348, and on separate day, a triple of 845.

In Special Olympics, there is only the opportunity to progress as a team, there is no individual progression to the Provincial or National games. And since 5 pin is strictly a Canadian game, there is obviously no World Games for this sport.

Last spring, Cory competed in a regional qualifying tournament to determine which team would represent our region (made up of about 20 teams from Richmond, Burnaby, and Delta). Special Olympics has a rather elaborate qualifying process so it took some time to confirm, but Cory has been selected to represent our region at the Provincial Games in Abbotsford, BC in July 2009.

And he's really excited about attending another Provincial Games (see previous posts for the story of his participation in the Provincial Winter Games in Kelowna in February 2007), though these will be Summer Games.

Cory at work during bowling practice:

And a shot of the score screen for one of his better games - 314!:

So, the bowling program for this season starts next Sunday, and we wait (not so patiently) for ski season to start in December.

Special Olympics Ski Racing - A Silver Medal Performance!

The location:
The Jolly Green Giant run on Whistler Mountain

The Date:

April 19, 2008

The Weather:

Sunny but a very chilly -15 degrees celcius, with gusty winds, but racers will always take visibility over warmth

The Event:

The Disabled Skiers Association of BC (DSABC) 2008 Provincial Championship Giant Slalom

The Result:

A second place finish and a silver medal!

Starting with some video - the first video shows Cory getting through the last few gates of his first run, and the second was taken at the top of his second run. We had talked about tucking as much as he could especially if the wind kicked up as he stood in the starting gate. He goes through several gates in a tuck, so it was good strategy.

You can certainly hear the wind and you can see some of the flags whipping about too.

The gold medallist is a very good skier, he beat Cory by just under 4 seconds in the first run, but fortunately, he is not a member of Special Olympics (at least not yet), so hopefully Cory will not have to worry about him. In the second run though, Cory was just over one second slower. The only way Cory could have beaten him was if he fell or missed a gate. Maybe next year's provincial championships!

Cory's main rival at Special Olympics, Jesse, finished third, only .91 seconds behind Cory in the first run, but he was over 2 seconds slower in the second run (though he may have missed the course inspection).

And considering how much I thought Jesse had improved since the Special Olympics Provincial Games in February 2007, it was a big big win for Cory to beat Jesse.

There was a lot of hoopla around this race. Just like in the World Cup, they held a bib draw the night before the race in the Whistler Village Square - Cory drew bib #35 (there were 41 racers in all). Fortunately, due to the cold temperature, the course was not affected much by the previous 34 racers that skied the course before Cory.

Cory also met some Canadian paralympic athletes - we skied with a blind skier who will compete in Beijing as a swimmer later this year. And the award ceremonies were held on a stage at the base of Whistler-Blackcomb and shown on a big screen TV - which I didn't notice, believe it or not, until Cory had received his medal.

Here's Cory on stage for the bib draw:

Cory checking out the course prior to his first run, with Whistler Village down below:

And then with Jesse:

And here's Cory visualizing before his first run. You can almost see him smiling - short term memory is a challenge for him so this visualizing is just for fun. We've seen World Cup racers doing this, so I asked Cory to do it as a laugh. But a few days later, I asked him about the race course and he remembered the placement of the first 4 gates, so maybe visualization might work for him after all! Then, ready to go, in his Volkl slalom skis (planning to get GS Volkls next year), his Atomic boots, and his new race suit. The blue one he bought last year has become a bit too tight and this one is a two piece - he finds it much easier to put on and take off - I think he'll be much more agreeable to wearing it maybe even during training next year.

And receiving his medal on the Whistler Blackcomb Stage:

And a year-end pic with his VASS coaches Carley and Roy:

So that's about it for this year - a very good winter for Cory. We had excellent snow conditions, with few rainouts (just one I think). We got up to Whistler for about 8 days of skiing and we're planning one more trip in May to Blackcomb for some spring skiing.

Now that he has found some good local coaching, Cory has decided he will not go to Hurricane Race Camp this summer as he did last year. I'm a bit disappointed since it was such a great experience for me as Cory's dad last year, but it really does not make much sense to travel to Oregon. Maybe in 2010, the summer before the next Special Olympics Provincial Games, just to give Cory as much an advantage as possible - we'll see.

And we expect VASS will provide Cory not just with good training and coaching next year, but also more racing opportunities too.

Equipment-wise, he loves his Volkl slaloms so much that he's reluctant to get a GS pair, but I think he's almost convinced that he'll be better off with specialized skis rather than using only his slaloms. And our good friend Greg Seidelin at Snowcovers has promised that he'll get Cory a great deal on a pair next year.

His Atomic race boots worked out really well too, once Greg got the Therm-ic warmers for him. The boots have been well-used and they sure show a lot of wear and tear after one year - but he can ski comfortably for hours on end, that's the main thing. So thanks again to Dave "Army" Armstrong at Atomic Canada.

Thanks too to Rob McSkimming and Bea Searle at Whistler-Blackcomb for allowing me to ski for free when Cory was training or racing at Gatebusters and Kokanee. And thanks to Tom Prozchaka at Gatebusters for allowing me to accompany Cory during the 4 times that Cory participated.

And of course thanks to Carley and Roy who coached Cory for only about 7 weeks and yet got a lot of improvement out of him - I'm convinced that if Cory had raced against Jesse earlier in the year, Jesse would have picked up the silver medal, not Cory.

Cory continues to struggle with the extended time-line to the next Special Olympics Provincial Games in 2011. He has a hard time understanding why he has to stay focused and working hard all the time until then. That's my job, to help him see how his commitment will help him get to where he wants to be, though there are no guarantees of course. But now that he's found some great training and coaching nearby, with the opportunity to race more frequently, I think it will become easier to keep him on track.

A summer of biking and fishing is now ahead, and I've got a few ski racing magazines to read to keep me going until next December. Cory's work/school schedule is uncertain for next September to May, but there's no doubt that whatever it may be, we'll try to accomodate as much racing and race training as possible.

We love to hear from anyone who reads our blog - sometimes we wonder if anyone does!! So please leave us a comment to know you visited.

So stay tuned for the next piece of news about "Ski Racing With Cory". And if you'd like to help those like Cory, Special Olympics in your neighbourhood can always use more volunteers.

Have a great summer!

Special Olympics Ski Racing - Finally, Great Training Closer to Home!

For those of you that have read this entire blog and are familiar with our story (that may just be me of course!), you'll know that last summer we trekked to Mount Hood in Oregon to get Cory some good racing coaching and training. It certainly was a great week at Hurricane Ski Camp, but a 7 hour drive does make it a bit inconvenient.



Thanks to a question from the dad of another athlete in Special Olympics, we learned about VASS - Vancouver Adaptive Snow Sports. This organization has been mostly focused on physically-disabled skiers, but recently added a program for those with developmental disabilities too.



As it turns out, one of Cory's main rivals, Jesse, trains in the VASS program too. Cory beat Jesse in the Super G and Giant Slalom at the Provincial Games in February 2007, but Jesse beat Cory in the slalom. And having seen Jesse now at the VASS program, it's clear that he has progressed significantly since last year and Cory may now have fallen behind.



This is a fairly intensive program compared to what Cory is used to - Thursday nights from 6:30pm to 8pm and Saturdays from 8am to 3pm - all of it on Grouse Mountain on the north shore near Vancouver. It's about an hour's drive from our house, so it means an early start on Saturday mornings. All in addition to Cory's Special Olympics program on Monday nights on Cypress Mountain.



There's about 10 athletes in the program, but only about 6 or 7 seem to participate in any particular session. Cory of course, never misses a session - once he commits to a program he simply refuses to miss any part of it.



There's been two coaches - Carley and Roy - and they have both been outstanding with Cory. He has not just enjoyed it, but he has already learned a lot and is obviously a better racer because of it.



The program actually started back in mid-January, but by the time we found out about it and checked it out one night, it was early March. So thanks to Carley, we were allowed to join about mid-way through. Cory has already said he wants to be there for the whole program next January.



Here's a couple of photos of Cory working with Carley:

























And a photo of the team, taken at the top of Grouse Mountain, with Vancouver down below:

And a pristine run on an early Saturday morning,

And now Cory doing the "boot touch" drill - touching his downhill boot with one arm while holding the other arm up and away from his body - and me following down the run, and Carley carrying the racers' poles.

Here's Cory going through a slalom course - he's learned to keep his shoulders pointed towards the bottom of the hill, rather than pivoting his body, and he does a really good job here keeping his hands out in front.

And a couple more videos of Cory in gate training

So it's now mid-April 2008, and Cory's VASS program is complete, except for a final race. On Saturday, April 19, on Whistler, Cory will participate in a Provincial Championship Giant Slalom with VASS, which he is really looking forward to. We're hoping the race will be on the Dave Murray downhill where we watched the World Cup Giant Slalom last February. We all think it would be cool for Cory to race on the same course as the World Cup, and Cory's mum would be able to watch from the finish line area.

Cory has really enjoyed VASS, and he certainly plans to participate next year. It'll mean a busy 3 months from January to March with skiing 3 times a week, but he's getting excellent coaching and has improved signicantly even with just 6 weeks of the program.

It probably means that we don't need to go back to Hurricane at Mount Hood this summer, which is disappointing to me, since that was such a great moment in time for me as Cory's dad. But if Cory can get the coaching and gate training here locally, it really doesn't make much sense to travel to Oregon for a week.

So I'll update again after the Provincial Championships on April 19.

And please do leave a comment if you've read any part of our blog. We like to know who's dropped by.

Special Olympics Ski Racing - Cory meets Canada's Ski Team!

We enjoyed a great day at Whistler watching the men's World Cup Giant Slalom last Saturday (Feb 23rd, 2008). An early wake-up at 5:15am and we set off before 6am, getting to Whistler Creekside early enough to get a parking spot just across the street from the Creekside Gondola.

The race was held on the lower part of the Dave Murray Downhill run on Whistler Mountain, a run that Cory and I have frequently skied (see http://racewithcory.blogspot.com/2007/10/putting-plan-into-action.html) , so it was pretty cool to watch a World Cup race on a run that we were familiar with.

The race started at 10am, so we had time for breakfast, before boarding a shuttle bus to "Timing Flats" - the finish area for all the races held here this weekend. The GS is two runs, one starting at 10am and the second starting at 1pm. There were about 60 racers in the first run, with only the top 30 qualifying for the second.

Austrian Benjamin Raich (here on the course)

was the first skier down the course at 10am, and his time was good enough for 1st place after the 1st run. But the best part was watching our Canadian skiers in action up close. John Kucera (here at the finish line)

placed sixth, Erik Guay 24th, and JP Roy 29th, so 3 Canadian skiers qualified for the second run.

We were hoping to meet with Robbie Dixon, who unfortunately didn't qualify for the second run. So after his run, we looked for him as he was leaving the finish area, but we couldn't find him. We did find another Canadian skier - Scott Barrett - and he kindly pointed Robbie out. So Cory was able to meet with Robbie, whose forerunner bib hangs in Cory's bedroom (see our post of November 16, 2007, http://racewithcory.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html). Robbie talked with us for several minutes about Cory and his racing, equipment, etc.

Here's a photo of Cory and Robbie:




We also met John Kucera: (with Cory squinting into the sun, unfortunately)

And even Jan Hudec, who won the downhill at Lake Louise last December, but is not racing right now due to injury:

All of the Canadian skiers were very pleasant, and took a lot of time talking with Cory. Cory and Jan talked about Mount Hood, where Cory trained last July, and Jan laughed when Cory said he felt like a "baggage handler" at Hood (see our post of October 28, 2007, http://racewithcory.blogspot.com/2007/10/special-olympics-ski-racing-hurricane_28.html ).

We had a real thrill when John Kucera finished his second run in 1st place, everyone was cheering wildly, but subsequent skiers were a bit faster and John finished in 5th place.

All in all, a great day; Cory really enjoyed it, and we're now thinking that we really must get to an alpine ski race at the 2010 Olympics on Whistler.

A few more photos:

Didier Cuche of Switzerland doing the famous "Didier flip" - that's how he takes off his skis after a race. A big flip of his leg and the ski goes flying into the air and he catches it.

Bode Miller reaching for the finish line - something that we learned by watching this race. All the racers reach down towards the top of their boots to activate the detector.

Hannes Reichelt the race winner, also reaching for the finish:

And some good news to add to this post - Cory has found some good gate training locally. More on that on our next post.

If you've read this, please leave a comment. Cory and I would love to hear from you.

Special Olympics Ski Racing - A Race At Last!

Well, Cory finally got into a race this winter and it was his first ever non-Special Olympics event. He took part in a Kokanee Race Series Giant Slalom, on Blackcomb Mountain last Thursday February 14.

Kokanee is open to anyone 19 years and over (19 being the legal drinking age in British Columbia and with the race sponsored by Kokanee Beer, do you think there might be a connection?) and there are several races throughout the season in Slalom, Giant Slalom, and Super G. The races are divided by gender and age, with the youngest age group including those 19 to 29.

So Cory raced against older, heavier, and more experienced racers. There were 11 others in his group, and Cory finished 12th. We had talked that he might very well finish last, so he wasn't too disappointed. I wanted him to race against non-Special Olympians, so that he could better understand that he can ski much faster. His technique is getting better all the time - thanks mostly to Bob Vial at Hurricane Ski Racing - but he has not yet learned how to push himself to be more aggressive, to learn to consistently turn early and high to get a better line. So I hope he will now see how fast one can ski through a race course.

This was also the longest course he had ever seen - there were 38 gates in all. He joked about it on the chairlift after we inspected the course - "do you think they could find some room for a few more gates on that course?" (I think he gets his sarcasm from me...). And some fog rolled in for both his runs - especially the first, as you can see in this video, taken at the finish line. You can see how he stands up after the last gate, unsure of where to go because of the fog, and then tucks when he realizes he's at the finish:

But the visibility was better for his second run, taken close to the start of the race:

Cory doesn't yet have any GS skis, he was skiing on his Volkl slalom race skis, in his Atomic race boots. He completed both runs without missing any gates, so all in all, we're quite pleased with his first shot at a generic (non Special Olympic) race. And even better, he wants to plan to participate in one more before the end of the season, so we're looking at a GS on March 13, or the finals (we don't yet know what's included in the finals) on March 20.

First up, next weekend, the World Cup comes to Whistler so we're planning to attend the men's GS race on Saturday. We regularly watch World Cup ski racing on TV, Cory knows the names of all the Canadians and many other world-class racers (Manny and John and Erik, Bode, Benjamin, Hermann, and many others, including Robbie Dixon who gave Cory his forerunner bib from Lake Louise in 2006), so it should be really cool watching them all race in person. Cory seems genuinely excited by it.

So I'll post again next week.

Special Olympics Ski Racing - January 2008 update and observations

Well, it's now the middle of January, 2008 and there's not a lot new to report. Some disappointing news though - there will be no Special Olympic races for Cory to participate in this winter. He was looking forward to using the new skills he developed at Hurricane Ski Racing camp on Mount Hood last July in a competition against the same athletes who participated in the Provincial Winter Games last February. Just to see how he would do.


But since some of them and a large group of volunteers are participating in the National Games in Quebec City in February, I'm guessing they found it rather challenging to set up a race weekend and travel to it as well as the Quebec City trip.



Cory of course did not qualify for the National Games, so he and the remaining athletes will not have a race to compete in until at least next year.


Cory has participated in two Gatebusters sessions, one GS and the other Slalom. He picked up some pointers from the coaches - looking further down the course in GS, and flexing his knee inwards more in Slalom. And we're planning on getting into a Kokanee GS race on Whistler Blackcomb on February 14th - so we'll update with the results after that for sure.

There's been no further problems with cold feet, those Liion Thermic warmers have been absolutely wonderful.

And those Volkl slalom skis he bought last summer? Cory just loves them - he's told me that if he can't ski in those skis, he doesn't want to ski at all! And he wants me to try to sell his old Head Monsters (old?? he bought them last year!).

So it's great to see that even a new racer like Cory can appreciate the value of great equipment - Volkl Racetiger skis and Atomic RT Ti 100 boots. Just need to convince him to get a pair of GS skis as well, for greater stability at higher speeds.

And interestingly, we just noticed last week that one of Cory's main rivals at Special Olympics has got himself a pair of race skis too - Rossignol 9s Slalom 155s. So Cory's not the only one with a eye on the top of the podium in 2011.


I've dug into our photo archives and thought I would post some photos from some of Cory's past ski adventures.



Here's one of Cory taken in December 2004 at the top of Sky Chair on our home mountain, Cypress Mountain, just north of Vancouver, BC. At this point, he had not yet started racing.











And a shot I took on the same day, through my goggle lens, kind of a cool special effect:

Same day, still at the top of Cypress Mountain, with my first pair of skis, Rossignol Carve something or other, can't remember the length and certainly did not know anything about sidecuts, radius, waists, etc.

Somewhere on Silver Star, I think, near Vernon, BC, February 2005:

That's Cory in the foreground, on our home mountain, Cypress Mountain, in February 2004:

On Cypress on March 2003:

Cory on the race course at the Provincial Games in February 2007, earning one of his bronze medals:

And his mum on the left and a friend cheering him on:

Here with his cousin, Justin, at a restaurant celebrating his 3 bronze medals:

One thing I should add: we've learned a lot about ski waxing, never even bothered with it until this year. We learned quite a bit from Sam and Max at Hurricane last July, and we've done a lot of internet research since.

So after just about every time we've skied this year, Cory and I have been waxing our skis. We start with a good brushing with a nylon brush (though it should be brass - have to get one of those). Then tune the edges using a fine diamond stone, just to de-bur and sharpen both the side and base edges. We used a rougher file on the edges at the beginning of the season to set the correct bevel (1 degree base, 2 degrees side) and since we're about half way through the season now, I just re-did that this week. But most times it's just to fine-tune and sharpen the edges with the diamond stone.

Then drip some wax using a wax iron (learning how much to use is trial and error) and iron the wax into the ski, then scrape while the wax is still warm. Then another wax drip, ironing the wax into the ski, and letting cool for about a half hour. A gentle scrape, then using the brush to remove excess wax and open up the structure (to allow moisture from the snow to escape). Then a polish - depending on expected temperatures.

Cory's been helping though I enjoy doing it so we get it done without any problems.