The Kokanee race was held in pleasantly clear conditions a couple of days earlier.
Here's Cory and his Blue Streak teammate Christie taking some course inspection advice from Whistler legend Rob Boyd...
Then it's time to prepare to race:
And into his first run of the 2 runs for the day:
He has worked hard to improve his technical skills and a couple of weeks ago, his coaches suggested he now put those skills to work - that he forget about thinking of his body position and technical skills as he trains and focus on just finding a way to go faster in a race course. Taking a more aggressive line, tucking more often, just attacking the race course. And on Saturday, there was a noticeable improvement and that's what prompted Coach Chris to call it a "breakthrough day, a big step up".
In fact, when we compared Cory's times to those of another racer he often trains with, a racer who has always been up to 5 seconds faster in a race course, we saw that Cory was now the faster racer - by 2 seconds for each run! That is indeed a big step up, a breakthrough day.
Some early runs through the Gatebusters course:
and then as the day progesses, his increased speed is noticeable here as he cuts in closer to a gate and hits it harder than he's ever hit a gate before...
So now it's off to Gatebusters for another GS training day on February 1, then a short training break as Cory takes a well-earned 4 day long weekend with no ski training. He''ll return to snow next week at Cypress with his Special Olympics Provincial Coach - Randy Scott - and then onto more Gatebusters sessions and one more Kokanee race at Whistler.
Here he is with Coach Randy at Cypress on a foggy night of training:
During his training break, we are expecting he will receive his Team BC uniform and gear so we'll update soon with photos of that.
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