It's an off year training-wise for Cory, but there's still some racing going on. For the first time ever, Cory got to be a forerunner, this was for an under-16 Super G race at the National Training Centre on Whistler Mountain. A forerunner is a test racer to ensure the race course is properly set for a safe race and most races have 3 or 4 forerunners. It is considered a bit of an honour to be a forerunner.
Sunrise on the Sea to Sky highway to Whistler foretells of a nice sunny day...
And that's just the way it turns out as the racers prepare...
It was Cory's first experience with a World Cup-like starting clock...beeping at 10 seconds to alert the racer, then every second down from 5 seconds when the racer can begin...as shown here:
Cory moving into the start hut in his 'F' forerunner bib:
And further down the race course, Cory shows pretty good form and speed, considering it's only the second time he's done gates all year. The "woo-hoo-hoo" comes from Jeff Mclellan, a Whistler Mountain Ski Club coach who has worked with Cory and was impressed with his speed.
This coming weekend Cory will be racing at Crystal Mountain in Westbank BC in a Special Olympics event where he'll be facing his biggest rival Jesse in both a slalom and a giant slalom race. It's just a fun race, nothing at stake, but it will be interesting to see how Cory compares to Jesse in a year where Cory has done little training. We'll update next week.