Race With Cory

Here's the reigning Special Olympics British Columbia Provincial Champion in serious preparation for the Provincial Games in 2 weeks' time....

Actually, after a 530am wake up and a 2 hour drive to Whistler, we discovered that training had been cancelled due to a communications mix-up.  No, it wasn't his dad's fault!

Last week, however, things went pretty much as planned, even getting our favourite parking spot at Whistler Creekside!

And the blue sky was a bonus!

But there hasn't been much snow on the coast so far this winter - Cory's regular training at Cypress in North Vancouver has been cancelled till further notice due to lack of snow - and Whistler on this day presented some challenging conditions on a very icy race course.  With Cory well aware that an injury now could postpone his dreams another four years, he started his first day of Slalom training this year very tentatively, often holding onto his turns in order to control his speed.  This race course had been set up by the Gatebusters program at Whistler (not Special Olympics) and was designed for very experienced racers.  

 But after a few tries, Cory finds out that even the more experienced Masters racers found the course very difficult and several had already given up.  With some instruction from Coach Tomio, he finds some new confidence and shows an obvious improvement.  He also had the opportunity to train in a less challenging race course courtesy of Whistler Adaptive Snow Sports, so with 3 different race courses on each run, and with 7-8 runs during the day, it was a very productive day of Slalom training after all.  

Let's race along with Cory!

And a smile to end his day on our way back down to Whistler Creekside.