Race With Cory

 This remarkable ski season - no snow & gold medals - almost came to a crashing end for Cory in Banff, Alberta last week.  He was attending one of his favourite programs, BC Adaptive's All Mountain Camp at Sunshine Village.  The camp features a half-day of gate training and a half-day of free skiing over a 4 day weekend.

Last Thursday, on the first run of the first day through a race course and urged by a coach to "show us how it's done", Cory skied more aggressively than ever, obliterating some of the gates as he took a very tight line through the course.

But at this red gate, it was a bit too tight and the gate took him down.  Hard.

There was some pain in both his head and his knee, so we skied down to the medical centre, where he was assessed and told there could be a minor concussion and some MCL damage.  They put his left leg into a splint and off we went to Banff Hospital.

There they took some x-rays of his knee and fortunately no major damage, and they saw no signs of a concussion.

Cory wisely took the next day off to rest his knee, and we enjoyed lunch by the Bow River in Banff.

The next day - Saturday April 20 - is all blue sky and terrific snow.  

With a cautious start in the learners' area, for a few runs there...

Then a couple on a green run...

Ready for the race course, but very slow and cautious....just awesome ski racing conditions, it doesn't get any better than this!

and staying away from those dangerous gates!

A bit faster and a bit closer on the next run, but that would be enough for this day...

A glorious day at Sunshine, perfect weather and snow, and Cory once again showed how he has the heart of a champion...

Posing with the ups and downs of ski racing.  Faced with the possibility of a major knee injury, possibly requiring surgery, and then to be told it wasn't anything major after all, was an emotional roller coaster ride, but it's all smiles now.

It snowed a bit the following day, Cory did a few more cautious runs in a race course, and that was the last of  this remarkable season.

Though a big baby bear did have thoughts of having a national champion ski racer for lunch!

And Cory flew on his own for the first time on this trip, that's his plane in the background.  I'm on a different plane and as always, he was faster than me and beat me home.

Stay tuned, we hope to receive an important phone call within a few weeks.  From Special Olympics Canada!