A Rippin' Great Summer Camp with Whistler Mountain Ski Club!

Cory attended his second ever summer race camp (Hurricane Race Camp at Mount Hood in July 2007 was his first) at Whistler Blackcomb from July 8 to July 12, which was made possible thanks to Rob Boyd, with Whistler Mountain Ski Club.

With snow only at the highest elevations of course, it means early starts to get onto hard snow before it softens by mid-day, and plenty of baggage handling - carrying skis, poles, boots,helmets, jackets, sweaters, gloves, food, water, even sunscreen, to the top, and then back down again at the end of the day. Summer race training really is a special experience, being part of a dedicated group of young athletes and coaches who are excited about giving up a part of their summer to return to winter-like conditions for a few hours each morning.

And as it happened on Mount Hood, where Cory memorably first demonstrated the characteristics of a champion, this time it was his chance to race head-to-head against a Canadian World Cup racer, that will provide life-long memories for us both.

As we often do, we arrived first at the Wizard Chair on Blackcomb Mountain each morning:



But not too much longer, there was a large group of racers ready to get their day going:



But it would take a while....first a ride on the Wizard Chair....



transfer to the Solar Coaster chair.....



From Solar Coaster to a bumpy bus ride with driver "Jean-A" as Johnny calls himself...and finally some snow around...






To 7th Heaven chair....



And finally on with the skis...and our first day at the top is a foggy one:




A few warm-up drills, first time on skis in two months...and yes, that is snow...it's snowing on us in July:



Summer camps are of course conducted on glaciers and they are well utilized with ski teams and clubs from all over North America - Vermont, Colorado, New York, we even met a racer from Florida! And some come from even further...here Cory is warming up next to a coach and athlete from Team China:




With the visibility as poor as it was, the day was limited to short slalom-type drills. The coaches quickly observed that Cory's body was too static, not enough up and down movement to place pressure on his edges and then release at the end of a turn. Done properly, the skis, stiff race skis, will bend under pressure and then act like a trampoline when released, pushing the racer upward and forward if the racer has the correct forward body position.

The difference can be seen in these two videos, taken about 90 minutes apart. In the first video, while Cory's skis do get up on edge, he is not using his upper body to apply pressure, just his legs.



Here, by using his upper body to drop at the hips without bending forward to place more weight down into his boots, through his bindings, and onto his skis, he not only applies more edge pressure to allow him to make sharper cleaner turns, but as he rises to complete the turn and initiate the next, the sudden release pushes him upward and forward into the next turn, allowing him to actually gain speed as he turns. It's still not quite right here but certainly an improvement over his earlier runs.



With no improvement in visibility, the coaches end the day a bit early and we start our trek back down to Blackcomb Village.

Downloading on Solar Coaster...



where we saw over 30 bears during the 5 days, including a mother and two cubs...







After lunch, a "short" 3-hour bike ride around Whistler where we just happen to run into Whistler Mountain Ski Club's Program Director, Rob Boyd, on the Whistler street named in his honour:



Cory wearing his hoodie from Bob Vial's Hurricane Race Camp in Loveland, Colorado last November:




The next morning, heading to Wizard Express for day two...and the fog is gone and it appears it will be a sunny day:




At the top of 7th Heaven, looking down at Horstman Glacier, with the WMSC Giant Slalom race course set up on the right, a bright sunny day indeed:




And the view from the top:



Onto the race course, Cory goes back to a very static upper body:




Then, a visit from Britt Janyk, a Whistler resident who just retired from the Canadian Alpine Ski Team last month:



Perhaps inspired, Cory gets back into the race course with a much-improved dynamic upper body, with me verbally willing him to get up and down, and showing some really good speed at the gate closest to the camera. It was after this run that Coach Jeff McClennan said "Cory is really ripping it up out there!":



Then here in a couple of videos taken by Rob Boyd who makes some observations on Cory's technique....his body now much more dynamic but a bit far back in his boots:






That's the end of Day 2 training and time to head back down...



And more bear sightings:



And there's no 3-hour bike rides on this afternoon, it's a beer in the hot tub instead! Ahhhh....the life of a ski racer....



The next morning is another bright sunny day and Cory is ready to rip it up again:



A couple more videos by Rob Boyd, and Cory continues to do well with a more dynamic body, just still needing to stay more forward:





A bike ride in the afternoon through some old growth forests:



and then along the Whistler Golf Course:



Then back to our rented condo at the Aspens and all that equipment to get dry and ready for tomorrow:






Day Four looks good and clear once again:



Looks great at the top:



And it was another good day of training for Cory and a very good day for bear sightings!



And the next day, the last day of camp, would turn out to be a very special one for Cory. Looking good here, upper body down, body forward, long extended leg, up on his edges and putting plenty of pressure on those skis:



Some really good dynamic body action here, and he's gonna need it even more on his next run!



Because for this one, he's racing head-to-head against Canadian Alpine Ski Team member Britt Janyk, who won a World Cup Downhill at Aspen Colorado a couple of years ago:



And here they go, Britt on the right on the blue course and Cory on the left on the red course, with Coach Jeff cheering him on!



Certainly the highlight of the camp for Cory who will remember the moment forever, as will I. Thanks so much to Britt...what a role model she is for Canada's young ski racers....after years on the World Cup circuit, Britt is just there to help out anyway she can...talking with the racers....racing against them...even carrying salt bags or equipment down the course:



Time for two last runs:






And that was about it for Cory's 2011 summer camp.




He will now take a break from skiing for 3 or 4 months, get as many shifts as he can at Safeway to rebuild his bank account, do some dryland strength conditioning, and enjoy some summertime R&R like fishing, biking, skimboarding, going to the local waterpark, maybe a day at Playland - Vancouver's amusement park.

We'll look at a November camp to get next season going - perhaps in Colorado or maybe Sun Peaks near Kamloops BC. An early season start will be critical to Cory's chances at the National Games in Jasper next March.

See you then! And please, leave a comment about our blog. We'd love to hear from you.

A Rippin' Great Summer Camp with Whistler Mountain Ski Club!

Cory has just returned from 5 days of hard work and glacier race training with Whistler Mountain Ski Club, and is now catching up on some sleep, in between his work shifts of course.

It was a remarkable five days, not just because he made some real progress and in the words of one of his coaches, he was "really rippin it up out there", but he had the wonderful opportunity to race head to head in a dual Giant Slalom race course against one of Canada's best - Britt Janyk who just retired from the Canadian Alpine Ski Team.

We'll post more pics and video from those five days, but for now, here is Cory versus Britt:

Back to Work

Cory's off to Whistler Blackcomb for 5 days of Giant Slalom training with Rob Boyd and Whistler Mountain Ski Club. As Cory learned on Mount Hood in July 2007, summer race training is hard work. Early starts to get on snow while it's still cold and hard, carrying skis, equipment, food, and water onto the chairlifts, then as many drills and gates as possible until the snow deteriorates around noon, at which time it can get very warm with ski gear on. Then carrying it all back down onto the chairs and a long walk at the bottom back to the condo.

But, then a free afternoon, where there will likely be some biking, certainly some swimming and hot-tubbing, with a beer or two, and it all makes for a very enjoyable and satisfying day.

And some very interesting news from the International Olympic Committee today - they just announced that the 2018 Winter Olympic Games will be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. And that's where Cory hopes to compete in 2013, in Special Olympics Winter World Games. And that's just why he's headed to Whistler Blackcomb, to improve his racing so that he has the best chance possible to get to Korea, when he competes at the National Games in Jasper next March.

Here's Cory in action last time he did some summer training - Mount Hood, Oregon in July 2007.

Cory Featured in SOBC Newsletter

Cory is the featured athlete in Special Olympics British Columbia's newsletter for June 2011. Here's the link to it:

http://www.specialolympics.bc.ca/news/2011/06/01/meet-athlete-cory-duhaime

Training in the Fog

Cory invested in three days of gate training at Whistler last weekend as he prepares for his first ever national competition in Alpine Skiing next March in Jasper, Alberta.

The plan was a good one. Train with Rob Boyd's Whistler Mountain Ski Club team of very good young racers on challenging terrain in both Giant Slalom and Slalom race courses. Get some great feedback from the Club's coaches, and get 8-10 runs through each course each day. And with still lots of snow at Whistler Blackcomb, not a bad plan at all for late May. Especially with early morning starts - 7am - with only racers having access to lifts and runs until the mountain opened to the public at 10am.

But, the weather didn't quite cooperate. Fog, fog, and even more fog limited Cory's run through the courses considerably. But he did manage to learn a few things, and with Alpine Skiing just like any other sport, where repetition is so important to skill development, and any run through a race course is a good run. So days 62,63, and 64 on snow since November 2010, and days 29, 30, and 31 of gate training.

At first it looked pretty good as Cory headed to the Wizard Express chair lift to get started on the first day:




And after the 2nd snowiest winter ever on Whistler Blackcomb,with over 50 feet snowfall, there is still plenty of snow to train on:





Cory's first warmup run shows a little bit of rust not having skied in over a month. He has lost some of the dynamic body action that he had learned a few months ago. A more dynamic upper body - more up and down movement over the skis - allows for greater pressure on the ski edges, which in turn produces a sharper turn with a cleaner carve (less sliding) and generates speed as the ski flex rebounds when weight is lifted. It's a crucial skill for ski racers to develop speed through a race course:




He improves a bit on his first training run through a Giant Slalom race course...






Whistler Mountain Ski Club offers some great training courses....lots of gates on challenging terrain. Here Cory has a look back at the course:




Then the visibility deteriorated quickly and with soft snow, so did the race course with the racers leaving large ruts by the gates. Not a good combination for racer safety, so that was the end of training for this day.


The next morning brought dense fog not far up the mountainside:



First, a quick run through a short brush course to get used to those quick slalom turns. This is a good warm-up exercise and Cory does need to learn to makes these turns by keeping his skis as close as possible to the brushes:



Then a couple of runs through a slalom course..as visibility again begins to deterioriate:



A coach suggests to Cory that he should be making much stronger pole plants in slalom for improved balance and timing:



But the deteriorating weather and course conditions once again end the day earlier than scheduled.

The next day brings more of the same as Cory tries a rather challenging race course; most racers had a lot of difficulty with that last gate, which brings forth a chuckle from me on this run:




Then after a few more runs, again the weather worsens but Cory puts down his best run of the weekend:




So not the best weekend for intensive training, but nonetheless it's a few more runs through a race course that Cory wouldn't otherwise get. So once again we thank Rob Boyd and the Whistler Mountain Ski Club for giving Cory the opportunity to train with them.



And on a visit to their clubhouse, we notice this in the their trophy case....a good omen perhaps?



After all, Korea 2013 is Cory's ultimate goal. And with that in mind, Cory is hoping to attend a 10-day race camp with Whistler Mountain Ski Club on Blackcomb Glacer in July.

We'll update about that soon. If you've visited our blog, we'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment, you can do so without a google account. Just use the anonymous option and leave your name in the comment section.

Back to Training

Well after a few weeks of well-earned rest, Cory will be back into race training mode very soon. Rob Boyd, with the Whistler Mountain Ski Club, has again graciously invited Cory to train with his race club at Whistler Blackcomb over the May long weekend.




It'll be early starts - 6:30am - but with exclusive access to lifts and ski runs until the mountain opens to the public at 10am.

Cory should get in a lot of great training with Rob and his coaching staff as he begins the next step in his quest to get to Korea in 2013.

Yes - It's Official!

Cory has been selected to Team BC to compete at Special Olympics' National Winter Games in Jasper, Alberta next March.

That is what he has been working towards since 2007 - get to the National Games for a chance to qualify for the World Games to be held in Pyeongchang, Korea 2013.

Cory knows that he has had a lot of help all along the way. Thanks to everyone with the VASS Blue Streaks - especially Coach Roy Sperling.

Also thanks to Whistler Adaptive Sports Programs: Chelsey Walker, Sammy Kent, Luke Hadley, and Chris Kent.

Thanks too to Bob Vial of Hurricane Ski Camps as well as Rob Boyd at Whistler Mountain Ski Club.

With help from all of you, Cory has passed into the next stage and can now set his sights on his next goal - Korea 2013!

The Waiting Continues....

Cory was told a couple of weeks ago that the announcement about the composition of Team BC was going to be made within a couple of days. Then an email announced a one week delay, yet here he is still waiting to hear whether he will compete at Special Olympics' National Winter Games in Jasper, Alberta in March 2012. The Winter Games are only held every 4 years, and they are a qualifier for the World Games to held in Korea in 2013. So he's anxious to hear.

He did compete of course in the National Summer Games in 2010 in London, Ontario, in 5 Pin Bowling.

So a quick trip back to August 2009, when he learned he'd been selected to go to London...we'd put the letter from Special Olympics British Columbia inside a menu at a local restaurant. While it takes him a long time to open the envelope, his reaction was worth the wait....



There won't be quite the same surprise this time since his 3 Gold Medals at the Provincials back in March qualified him as the best skier in Special Olympics BC, and it appears he will find out via the SOBC website, but we'll update as soon as we hear.

Hopefully by the end of this week.

GOLD + GOLD + GOLD!!

The best result possible:

Slalom: GOLD!




Giant Slalom: GOLD!




Super Giant Slalom: GOLD!





But for at least one of the races, it was close, very close.

We won't know for a couple of months whether Cory will be selected to Team BC to compete in Special Olympics' National Winter Games in Jasper, Alberta next February. But he's done everything he could have to make that happen.

The 2011 Special Olympics British Columbia Provincial Games for Alpine Skiing were held on Crystal Mountain in Westbank, BC. About 60 athletes for around the province competed in the 3 events. Since Special Olympics athletes represent a very wide range of abilities, the racers are divided into Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced, with several divisions of up to 8 racers in each ability level.

In Cory's first provincial skiing competition in 2006, he competed at the Novice level and won all his races. The following year he was moved up to the top division of the Advanced level and earned Bronze medals in each of the 3 races. We knew of course that this year he would also be competing in the top division of the Advanced level.

So the athletes race against others of similar ability and earn points based on their finishing position with first place earning 10 points, second 8 points, etc.

Selection for Team BC to go to the National Games in 2012 is based on gender and age, with the top point earner in each age group in each gender having the best chance to be selected. But the number of athletes who go is based on a quota system provided by Special Olympics Canada.

So it's fair, but complicated, and it takes a few weeks to sort it all out. So now Cory waits for a phone call or letter to let him know if he's been selected.

The trip to Crystal Mountain began on the afternoon of Thursday, March 3, 2011, when Cory and other athletes from Delta and Richmond boarded a chartered bus.

Athletes and coaches were provided with meals and accommodation at Green Bay Bible Camp in Westbank.

The next morning we boarded the bus to take us to Crystal Mountain for the Giant Slalom and Super Giant Slalom races, each involving 2 runs through the respective race courses, so it was going to be a long and suspenseful day.

Cory has spent over 45 days this winter on snow, working on his technical skills during free-skiing, or gate training, or racing. His training and racing have taken him to Colorado and over a dozen trips to Whistler, where he has trained and raced on long steep race courses with up to 45 gates.

But our first look at the Giant Slalom course is anything but steep and long: only 16gates spread over moderate terrain. This is a good safe course to accommodate athletes of all abilities but it does make it a challenge for any racer to recover from a small mistake or to find a little bit of extra speed. And racing against other excellent racers on a short course will bunch the racing times very close together.

Here's Cory at the top and the finish line is by the red fence at the bottom on the right, a short race course indeed:




"Hundies Matter" is a racing expression that reflects the nature of ski racing where the difference between winning and losing can be just a few hundredths of a second. When hundies matter, everything must go right, no equipment problems, good wax and sharp edges, and most importantly, perfect technique combined with a line through the race course that maximizes speed, especially through the flatter portions of a race course where carrying speed from the steeps to the flats is often the biggest difference maker.

On this day, Special Olympics chose to not provide a scoreboard for some reason, so there would be no easy way to quickly get race results. And with Cory assigned bib #1he would be one of the first down the course, so after getting him organized at the top I skied down to the finish line to stand next to the timekeepers to hear the racers' times being recorded. I knew that Cory had only 2 main rivals and they were starting soon after him.

During course inspection, Cory decided he would look for speed at the steeper section at the top by taking a higher line rather than skiing directly towards the gates. This would enable him to make rounder turns and develop speed over the first section of the course that he could then carry through into the flatter sections. The alternative is to ski more aggressively, more directly at the gates, but this requires a very high degree of technical skill to edge properly and avoid braking when speed is developed too quickly in steep sections.

I watched Jesse leave the start for his run and he attacked the gates quite directly forcing him to make hard turns by the 3rd and 4th gates. I felt then that Cory had made the right decision to be less aggressive at the top, build his speed, and carry through to the finish.

And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. Except for a slight wobble just after the last gate before the finish line where Cory looked for a gate that wasn't there Cory finished his run 1.4 seconds faster than Jesse. The other rival was slower than Jesse so Cory was in first place after the first run of the Giant Slalom. Cory and I talked it over and we decided he would use the same tactics for the 2nd run since there seemed to be no need to be more aggressive.

Cory skied another clean run, made some nice round turns at the top, linking them nicely together and carried his speed to the end, didn't wobble at that last gate, and the Gold was his, 2.66 seconds faster than Jesse for the two runs combined.

The next event was the Super G and we knew this would be a close race with Cory, Jesse, and another racer, David, all having an excellent chance to win. David in particular is bigger and heavier than both Cory and Jesse and that's a real advantage in a speed event with fewer turns.

Here's Cory's first run, being watched carefully by the Provincial team coach. His time 22.15 seconds:





A bit later it was David's turn and his time: 22.17 seconds, just 2/100ths of a second behind Cory! So the Super G Gold Medal would be decided in the second run which would likely be just as close.

Cory and I talked about his first run and we decided he would tuck a bit sooner than he did in the first run. The last few gates had little offset so good turns weren't as critical, but a tuck would certainly give him more speed.

So in the second run here, you can hear me whisper "tuck now, tuck now" as Cory approaches the finish line and sure enough he does. His time of 21.73 is better than his first run so now it's a matter of waiting for David to complete his second run.





David crosses the finish line in 21.84, better than his first run too but not enough to catch Cory, who wins Gold by a total of 13/100ths of a second!!


So Day One ends with 2 Gold Medals and one more race to go, the Slalom, on Day Two. Jesse would likely provide Cory's biggest competition in the Slalom.

On a beautiful sunny morning, Cory completed both runs in 56.64 seconds, 2.56 seconds faster than Jesse:





So 4 years of preparation pays off with Cory stepping up from 3 Bronze medals 4 years ago to 3 Gold Medals this year.

Now, Cory has a chance to sit back and enjoy the moment, do some casual free-skiing as opposed to hard training, and wait for the announcement of the Special Olympics British Columbia Alpine Ski Team for the Special Olympics 2012 National Winter Games.

In the meantime, we'll start planning for the best and look at training and racing options for Cory between now and the National Games in February 2012.

4 Years of Preparation For 4 Minutes of Racing

It was four years ago that Cory participated in his first Special Olympics British Columbia Provincial Winter Games in Alpine Skiing. He finished third in each of his 3races: slalom, giant slalom, and super giant slalom.





The two racers who beat him are no longer competing but it won't be an easy step up to the top of the podium as Cory has at least two very good competitors who have also worked hard to improve since 2007.




Over the last four years, Cory has worked on a plan we developed shortly after the 2007 Winter Games. That plan was to obtain better coaching, more race experience, improve his equipment, and maintain his fitness.


Finding better coaching started a few months later, when in July 2007, he attended Bob Vial's Hurricane Race Camp on Mount Hood in Oregon.




And later, in December 2010, he even worked under the eye of Rob Boyd, a former Canadian Olympic ski racer who won a World Cup downhill race which took place exactly where the two of them are standing now (the start of the Dave Murray Downhill run at Whistler):





Of course, since 2008 he's been a Vancouver Adaptive Snow Sports Blue Streak, training on Grouse twice a week and working first with Carley Stobbart (in pre-Blue Streak jacket days)




And now with Roy Sperling:





With Mark Anderson, from Whistler Adaptive Sports Programs at Whistler in 2010:




And most recently with WASP's Luke Hadley...




WASP's Chris Kent:




And WASP's Sammy Kent:






So it certainly seems that the better coaching part of the plan has been achieved.

And as for his equipment, from one pair of Head Monster recreational skis...




To a wax-room full of Volkl Racetigers, the longer set for Giant Slalom and Super Giant Slalom, and two sets of Slalom (one set is slightly damaged so we use those when snow conditions are poor...commonly known as "rock skis")




And now two pairs of Atomic race boots:





For fitness, Cory bowls twice a week, plays basketball every week and does weight training once a week as well.

So he's followed his plan and now it's almost time to put it to the test. But first some final days of training:

A Gatebusters slalom session with Luke Hadley on the Olympic run at Whistler:







In slalom, Cory has been working hard at getting his skis as close as possible to the gates, and he does a good job of that right here:




The next day, it's a Kokanee Slalom race on Raven/Ptarmigan at Whistler and this time it's under extreme weather conditions - minus 25 degrees C and winds gusting well over 50 kms/h. Cory wanted to train under any conditions so that he'll be ready to race under any weather conditions. But this was extremely cold.





And for his final training session before the Provincial Games, we headed to Cypress Mountain where he looked really good in this run following his rival Jesse:





So our next update will include the results of his racing on Friday and Saturday and we'll know by then about his chances to be selected to Team BC to race at the National Games in Jasper in 2012.

4 Years of preparation for 4 minutes of racing.