Cory brought home some silver from Silver Star Ski Resort near Vernon, BC, last weekend. Two silver medals in the Western Canadian Paralympic Championships.
The Paralympics are a separate entity from Special Olympics, but are much better known due to their close association with the regular Olympic Games. But at events like these, the Paralympic group are willing to include racers with an intellectual disability, even though participation is not sanctioned by Special Olympics. Gotta love the politics of sports organizations! But we are grateful to BC Adaptive Sports for their spirit of inclusion.
A group of about 25 athletes participated, from several places in BC and Alberta, several of them familiar faces from Special Olympics, but many of them with physical disabilities so we see them only at these events. The Paralympics division by disability, so sit-skiers compete against sit-skiers, blind against blind, intellectually disabled against intellectually disabled, etc.
So Cory was competing against Special Olympics athletes as well as other intellectually disabled athletes who are not in Special Olympics. Phew, hope you can all follow that...
It's about a 5 hour drive to Silver Star from our home in Tsawwassen, BC. It's a drive we've made many times before and this time there was no hurry, and so with good weather, we took a detour along the Douglas Lake Road between Merritt & Vernon.
Looks like a nice place to stop for lunch....
Selfies always make Cory laugh...
The historic Quilchena Hotel...
We drove for miles through the huge ranch, cattle everywhere...
with plenty of calves...
and protective cows, one worried about her wobbly legged baby...
We eventually make it to Silver Star and find our rented condo right next to the ski hill, and still in its Christmas colours.
But the next morning brings fog, clouds, rain, and wet snow...
But since those are often the ski conditions on the BC south coast, Cory is well prepared for a day of training in the wet with his Karbon poncho...
But the rain stops and he's back down to his Whistler Mountain Ski Club jacket to tackle the slalom race course
But the weather deterioriates, the snow softens up a bit too much making training more dangerous, so the organizers call it a day after only 3 runs through the course for Cory. He usually gets 7-8 runs in a normal training day. But it's an outdoor sport and we just have to prepare for racing the next day....and a visit to the hot tub too of course.
The next morning visibility is even worse, but at least there's snow falling, and falling heavily, a rare sight for us on the west coast this winter.
But the other racer nails a terrific second run, and Cory's is considerably - and inexplicably - slower, almost 4 seconds slower. Still, Cory earns a silver medal which really was his expectation going into the weekend, but there was no doubt he was a bit disappointed.
So we head back to the condo at the bottom of this hill, and into the hot tub to relax and prepare for the Giant Slalom the next day.
And he can still enjoy his silver moment with his teammates:
Silver Star's colourful village...
with a great view at the top...
Cory has two excellent and consistent runs, just one hundredth of a second between the two. He has been dropping his hands as he pole plants which forces him to stay too far away from the gates in order to clear them. In his second run, he does a much better job of keeping his hands forward, and as a result he slices his 1st run deficit from over 3 seconds to just under 1 second in his second run! A great way to end his race season and something to build on for next season as this will allow him to cut much closer into each gate.
He is also learning to tuck more often and in both of these runs, he tucks through the flat section at the bottom of the pitch, while his competitors did not.
He is also learning to tuck more often and in both of these runs, he tucks through the flat section at the bottom of the pitch, while his competitors did not.
And concludes his 2015 race season with a triumphant weekend of silver at Silver Star.
Cory will return to Silver Star this weekend for a performance camp with Special Olympics and hopefully we will know soon whether his participation in the National Winter Games next year in Newfoundland has been confirmed.
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