Andrea Dupont

Archive for January, 2013

December Update

So I know it has been ages since I last posted. I really struggle with the concept of a Blog being a regularly updated site:)

But this season has been eventful and it is high time that I post an update.

December went by quickly with a NorAm in Canmore, followed by 2 race weekends of World Cups in Canada. The NorAm race was on the Canmore World Cup course and was excellent prep. There were some Swedes in town for the NorAm which added to the competitive field. I was the top Canadian and felt confident in my shape heading into the 2 weekends of World Cups on home turf.

The first World Cup weekend of racing was in Quebec City, where the City put on the most exciting and fun races I have ever had the pleasure to attend or race. The course was literally lined with crowds, something we don’t normally see in north America, and there was not an inch of the course that there weren’t people cheering you on who actually knew your name.

 

I had the opportunity to do the team sprint with Kate Brennan and we had a hard fought semi and did not advance to the finals. Day 2 was the individual sprint. The atmosphere was contagious and most people were literally bopping on the start line to tunes that were blasting around the course. The level of support for North American skiers at this race was incredible. I have never seen this many ski fans in North America. Unfortunately for the Canadians, most of us did not fair well in the soft sloppy conditions. Most of us are power skiers and train mostly on rock hard ski tracks in Canmore, which many call ‘Canmore concrete’. The Quebec course, made of artificial snow and with temperatures barely dipping below zero at night, had been progressively deteriorating since its creation. This translated to only 1 Canadian making the top 30 for the qualifying rounds. For me, I felt like I had a solid effort but could feel my power disappearing into the soft snow with every push. I felt like I learned a lot and went home knowing that I needed to learn to ski efficiently in sloppy conditions. In Canmore it is easy to be lazy and only ski on perfect tracks. But really to prepare for these tough conditions, we all need to train in all conditions, especially crappy conditions. Lesson learned:)

The next weekend was World Cup races in Canmore. It was nice to race at home. It was a tough course, and I missed qualifying by only a few seconds. It is frustrating when you can see exactly where those seconds could have been. I am thankful to have 4 more World Cups under my belt and feel more comfortable with World Cups races, being just another race, with faster competitors.

Not the top 30 I was shooting for… but I felt like I could see exactly what I needed to do to get those last few seconds to get there.

 So all in all, a good start to the season.

Next up, World Champ sprint trials in Thunder Bay and Duntroon, Ontario.

 

 

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