The first race was his 4th Kokanee race, a Giant Slalom on Lower Franz at Whistler Creekside. This time he did finish last in his age group, but still gained enough points to remain in 3rd place overall.
His coach for this race was Sammy Kent, who has now coached Cory a half dozen times or so. Sammy's been working with Cory to move his hips forward and to start his turns earlier as he goes through a race course.
The race course started with a steep pitch so Cory had a good look before getting in the starting gate:
Here's Cory in his first run, with good speed but he holds his turn a bit too long after the blue gate nearest the camera, and he loses some of that speed:
And in his second run, which looks good:
Sammy has also talked to Cory about being just as aggressive in his first run as he is in his second run down a course. He normally is a couple of seconds faster in his second run. Since the times are combined, not best of the two, it's important that Cory put two good runs together in order to be successful. But Cory's first run is 1:22:26 and his second run is 1:20:77, so he still has some work to do on that.
His next race was his first Masters Race ever, and it was also a Giant Slalom held on Lower Franz at Whistler.
Joining him for this race were two of his VASS Blue Streak teammates, including Jesse - his main rival from Special Olympics. So this race was to be a good test of Cory's progress and an indication of his chances of being at the top of the podium in March.
Chris Kent - a former Canadian ski team member - coached the Blue Streaks and spent a lot of time doing an extensive course inspection with them.
It was a cold windy day, but with clear skies and hard snow, that makes it ideal for racing:
Cory's first run, in 1:09:03:
And his second run:
And this time his two runs are very close together, with his second run in 1:09:60, just a half second slower. So he may be making progress in being equally aggressive in both runs.
But what was very encouraging is that he was faster than Jesse by almost 3 seconds in his first run and by close to 5 seconds faster in his second. Cory was very pleased with those results as it seems that all those early mornings and hard work seem to be paying off.
The Masters Races are open to anyone 18 years of age or older. Here presenting Cory with his first place finish (Cory and Jesse were the only two Masters under 30 years old), is an 80 year old Masters Racer....whose overall time was 4 seconds faster than Cory's!
The peak of Whistler, on our last run of the day after the race, down Peak to Creek, a 5.5 kilometre long intermediate run, the longest in North America:
The next night, a clear crisp evening, Cory trained with Special Olympics at Cypress in North Vancouver.
Cory's rival Jesse is training at Cypress too, and he and Cory stick together the entire evening, running the training course one after the other, and heading back up on the chair together. They may be rivals, but they remain good friends.
And Jesse is fired up! Perhaps driven Cory's performance at the Masters Race the day before, Jesse really pushes himself and really drives himself hard down the training runs. Cory responds and skis aggressively too:
Maybe a bit too aggressively here as he gets into some soft snow, but makes a good recovery and gets way up on his ski edges as he turns:
Really up on his edges on this run too, but a bit too bent over at the waist, which is something he often does when he's tiring, or in this case, looking for more speed:
So in spite of some very good results at the Masters Race, Cory will continue to train hard. Not only does Jesse continue to be a formidable opponent, there are one or two other Special Olympics athletes who have their eyes on the same prize. Since we don't know how their training is going, Cory will have to keep at it. Next up is a day of training with the VASS Blue Streaks at Grouse Mountain, then a Gatebusters day at Whistler, followed by two more VASS Blue Streaks sessions later in the week.
Ahh....the life of a ski racer.....a free Kokanee beer after each Kokanee race....
But then there's the post-race helmet hair!
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