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.