Pique Magazine, published 20.01.04

Giving Back and Having Fun

A week at home and now I am back on the road and feeling refreshed. My stomach is full of home cooked food and my mind is full once again of Canadian news and movies! The week went by quickly but it felt good nonetheless. I mean it’s only a 10-hour flight each way to and from Europe; really it’s nothing!

While I was at home I did however get a chance to go up skiing… in fact I was up on the hill my first day home. It felt great to be on the mountain. I left my race skis in the garage and took my fun skis and off I went to go and play. I even skied in the rain one day! I’m not sure what I was thinking, but hey, I was having a good time and it was a blast.

Just before flying back over to Europe on the 17th I got a chance to go up and help out Jacques Morrell with the race training session that runs every Friday for the Ski School Instructors. For those of you who skied that day know how hard the snow was; as we “West Coast” skiers say, “it was like skiing out east!” The snow was firm and perfect for a day of race training. I had a great time. Not only was I able to work on my own skiing, but I hope that I was also able to give some of the ski instructors who were there some insight into what ski racing is about. Sometimes I find that we, the ski world, tend to treat the racing side of skiing and the instructing side of skiing like they are two different worlds. I’m not saying that there aren’t differences between the two, because there are, and the two fields of the sport are very important. There are also, at the same time, a lot of similarities. We all speak the same language, one aspect is in the teaching of the sport and the other is in perfecting the sport. Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb Mountain provide such a great atmosphere for the skiing world to connect. We hold Ski School competitions, Snowboard competitions, Freeride competitions and many a Ski race has been held on both mountains. Ski racing and Ski School should definitely have a close link. The mountain has a strong Ski Club filled with amazing young athletes, just you’re your head at upper Dave Murray every once in a while and you’ll see some hot skiing. I watched them just the other day and man was I impresses. What the Ski Club kids really need is support from their home mountain, which I know there is a great deal of it, but we can’t forget them. I came through that Ski Club and I am so proud to be affiliate with the valley. With the Olympics now coming in 2010 it is even more important that we remember to support our up and coming athletes that are in the valley. Everyone can learn from each other, because really we are all striving to become better at the sport we do. When you watch a racer come down the hill you are watching the essence of skiing and the perfection of the power that can be built into the skis. The physics of the sport comes together; the racer is mechanically making the right movements with their body and this then results in the power and the performance produced in the ski. There is always something to learn by watching others ski, whether it’s of your peers, your competitors and even of yourself. The sport is a constant learning curve. I’m glad I was able to give back a little to the sport on that Friday and that I was able to share a little of what I have learned while racing. I’m sorry to say that I won’t be able to make it for next Friday… I’m just a little far away now! Anyway, enjoy the rest of the sessions and I encourage you to keep on learning and watching the world of skiing that surrounds you.

On the results side of things both the women and men’s World Cup teams have been posting some excellent results. Genevieve Simard won her fist ever World Cup in Super G. I saw her at the beginning of the week and was able to give her a big congrats. On the men’s side Thomas Grandi finished 5th in the SL race in Wengen, Switzerland last weekend and Julien Cousineau finished 10th in the same race. My brother Michael also started in the race but didn’t qualify in the top thirty for the second run. He will start again though in the next SL race in Kitzbuhel, Austria.

Well, until the next, keep enjoying the mountains and watching the results and thanks again for reading and listening to my voice.

All the best,
Britt