Patrick Biggs' Blog

Sept 12 2009 - Slalom

Sept 13 2009 - Slalom

Sept 12 2009 Slalom - run 2

It’s nice to be home. I returned to Ottawa a few days for what will be the last significant block around town before hitting the road for the season. Thursday evening I took in the sounds of the Kings Of Leon at Scotiabank Place. Great show, lots of good times.

Friday was a big day for local ski racing in Ottawa. The 14th annual Art Tommy Memorial golf tournament took place at Edelweise golf club. The foundation has been a huge supporter of the National Capital Outaouis division team and clubs in the region since it’s conception. I remember being a ball spotter as an NCD team member at the tournament when it first started 14 years ago. Time flies.

I’ll be off to Hintertux, Austria early October for a two week camp on the glacier. Lots more to polish up before I race the first slalom in Levi, Finland mid November.

I’m currently posting some training video from the last trip to New Zealand. Unfortunately is comes out a little horizontally compressed because of the format, so it may look like I’m moving up and down more than in real life. Also, I was featured as part of the CAN Fund article in Healthwise Magazine Ottawa. Check it out at: http://healthwiseottawa.com/readers

The final days are winding down here at Coronet Peak. Spring is coming quickly as we finish up our last two days. The snow has switched from winter snow to frozen corn snow within the matter of a week. The corn snow is an excellent surface to work with as long as the temperature drops low enough for it to freeze over night.

I’ve made some good progression with my skiing over the past couple of weeks. After falling behind in the past couple of years as skiing technique changed right in front of my eyes on the world cup, I’m playing catch-up to make sure I’m in a position to win runs and races, not just finish within a couple of seconds of the best. Check back for video in the next couple of days for a sneak peek.

I had my first days off of the camp yesterday and today. Being the third time I’ve visited New Zealand, I thought it about time that I should get out of the mountains and visit the coast. So on Monday night Trevor White and I borrowed a team van and drove the 3 hour trip to Dunedin. We have an old ski friend that is living there and put us up for the night. The next day we toured the beaches, borrowing some surf gear, we hit a few breaks in St. Clair and south of Dunedin. I was able to catch a few good waves, but the 6′8″ was a little shorter than the longboards I am accustomed to surfing, making it a bit more difficult.

This week we did a few warm up races for the season. Conveniently, the New Zealand National Championships were scheduled at Coronet Peak during our stay. It was a good opportunity to gauge how our training is going by applying it to a race situation.

For myself, I was able to step up my skiing in the race, posting the fastest first run of the slalom by half a second, and having two solid GS runs despite my high start number. Unfortunately I had a few problems in the second run of the slalom and moved back to 3rd. If I had finished first which was the game plan for the day, I could have helped my world ranking and start number on the World Cup. Cousineau was able to post two solid runs and take the top step of the podium. Look for some video of the race posted in the next couple of days!

I’m back down south of the equator for a second trip in Queenstown, New Zealand. I had some issues getting down here, getting stuck in Toronto, only a 40 min flight from home. I missed a connection and got stuck overnight waiting for another flight. After 2.5 days of travel, I hit the slopes at Coronet Peak. I was welcomed by about 2ft of freshies. Not a bad start to the camp. The locals said it was the best snowfall of the year. By the next day, the snow was pushed off the hill and things were a go for training.