Challenges

Having been given an opportunity to race on World Cup with GB2 and team Deen. This was a double race, one on Saturday and the following on Sunday. Most world cup races normally have one race at each track on Sunday. As a crew we pushed well and had good velocities starting well inside the top 20. It was a close race and we had a good battle with the Dutch where we finished just ahead of them (0.01 seconds) in 19th place.All of the information from start times to finish positions were recorded from every race to help coaches with selections for Olympic Games.

 

We moved on to the Europa Cup in Austria, Igls. Again this was a double race and I was put in GB3 with Team Golder. Our first race started well with our frist run putting us in 13th with a competitive start time. However upon arrival at the block for heat 2 of the first race there was a major fault with the sled so we had to withdraw, resulting in a DQ from the race.  This was an exteremly mentaly tough situation to deal with. Ready to race, full warm up with lots of adrenaline to push fast and then having to walk away.  As an athlete you always want to find out what happened and to make improvements for the next race.

Some changes were made to the sled and we were able to compete in the second race where we finished in 17th place. With another two races for Great Britain under my belt we moved on to Switzerland, St Moritz.

Still on the Europa Cup circuit we had 4 races in 4 days. With team Golder GB3 and helping out the boys in GB2 to assist them as much as possible in qualifying for the Olympics.

The first race was a team race, this incorporates men and women’s skeleton with women’s 2 man and men’s 4 man. The race being decided on a cumulative time from all sleds. GB3 finished in 16th place.

Moving forward to the 18th January 2014 where a double race took place on the same day. This is a total of 2 runs, as a result of adverse weather conditions the previous day where the race was cancelled.

The first race we started 5.28, a considerable improvement on the 5.35 we started for the team race. With a decent drive from Will Golder we came down in 10th place. Using this motivation we prepared by relaxing and calming down in the café. At the start of the second race we were ready and extremely motivated to give it everything as we all thought that it was our last race/run of the 2014 season. We made further improvements to our start bringing it down to 5.22 and a superb drive again saw us finish in 9th place. All of these races were completed in a new sled that we as a crew and a driver had never seen or used before!!!

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