I am back at Lofer now for a block of training after a few days at home over christmas which was a hectic as ever but great fun to see most of my family and friends.
In skiing terms this month has been fairly difficult because I was really finding it hard to get my feeling for skiing back with very few training oportunities due to the race calendar , Bad Kleinkircheim world cup was going ok on a really tough piste but I couldn't quite hang on till the finish line it was looking like I would come in around 37th or so, in the europa cups I DNF'd in both which was disappointing but I knew that I needed some more time to find some form. In Alta Badia I really felt like I was getting back on top of things, we got 1 training day in before the race which gave me the chance to work on some technical stuff on my run unfortunately I had a big mistake on the top section however I skied the 15th split time on the bottom section which was really encouraging for me after the previous weeks.
On the 23rd December I was invited to race in an invitational parallel slalom at Pila in Italy for great prize money, there is always a big crowd and it's covered live on Italian tv. I reached the semi finals where after knocking out the number 1 seed Davide Simoncelli in the quarters I met the eventual winner Guiliano Razzoli, unfortunately I crashed in our second heat which gave him an easy path to the final. This was a great finish to wrap up 2007 with my biggest ever prize money as a christmas bonus.
Next up in the new year is Adelboden where it's looking like I will only race slalom this year. I should be in good shape after these much appreciated training days.
Happy new year to everyone hope you've got your trips to the snow all sorted.
Noel
In skiing terms this month has been fairly difficult because I was really finding it hard to get my feeling for skiing back with very few training oportunities due to the race calendar , Bad Kleinkircheim world cup was going ok on a really tough piste but I couldn't quite hang on till the finish line it was looking like I would come in around 37th or so, in the europa cups I DNF'd in both which was disappointing but I knew that I needed some more time to find some form. In Alta Badia I really felt like I was getting back on top of things, we got 1 training day in before the race which gave me the chance to work on some technical stuff on my run unfortunately I had a big mistake on the top section however I skied the 15th split time on the bottom section which was really encouraging for me after the previous weeks.
On the 23rd December I was invited to race in an invitational parallel slalom at Pila in Italy for great prize money, there is always a big crowd and it's covered live on Italian tv. I reached the semi finals where after knocking out the number 1 seed Davide Simoncelli in the quarters I met the eventual winner Guiliano Razzoli, unfortunately I crashed in our second heat which gave him an easy path to the final. This was a great finish to wrap up 2007 with my biggest ever prize money as a christmas bonus.
Next up in the new year is Adelboden where it's looking like I will only race slalom this year. I should be in good shape after these much appreciated training days.
Happy new year to everyone hope you've got your trips to the snow all sorted.
Noel
