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Posted on Wednesday August 12th at 1:04 p.m.
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Since this is my first blog I thought I would fill you in on what has happened since adding my Bio to this awesome website.
I arrived back in good old NZ in mid July after a couple of years living in the UK. Had a great time up in the northern hemisphere before returning to NZ and am now based in Wanaka.
I arrived back to what has to have been the best early snow base the South Island has seen in a long time, great for my preparation for the World Champs.
After a couple of productive weeks of training with my coach Adam Dooney, I was hungry to get on the race course. The first 2 days racing was in the Adaptive Snowboard Nationals Slalom and Giant Slalom. Not my favoured events but still good to stretch the legs (one and a half of them anyway!) and push myself before the World Championships later that week. With the fastest raw time in both Slalom and GS I missed out on gold by the slimmest of margins to Canadian rider Ian Lockey. We have a thing in Adaptive Snowboarding called Classification. This is a percentage based system that takes into account individual disabilities and your raw times are adjusted accordingly.
After just missing out on the gold in the national events I knew I had to pull something big out for the World Championships. The official event for the World Champs was Boardercross. With the sun shining and a typical near gale force wind at Cardrona I was called up for my first of 3 runs down the great course set up by the event guys.
I put down 3 solid fast runs in all my time trials. Was this enough I thought after finishing my last run. I felt fast and well prepared.
Me, WSF Adaptive Snowboarding World Championships Boardercross
Turns out I would have to settle with another silver medal! Being beaten by another Canadian, this time Tyler Mosher, with Ian Lockey in 3rd place only 0.3 seconds behind me.
The Podium
With a top 3 finish in the World Champs this has seen me move up from a NZSBU squad member to now being on the NZSBU National Team. Being the first ever Adaptive snowboarder to reach national team status along side able bodied riders. (So stoked on that one).I also found out that I will also be forerunning the Boardercross in the 100% Pure New Zealand Winter Games later this month. So come up and watch a great day of racing with the best riders from around the planet.
So what to from here? Well, I just spent the last few days chilling out at home, trout fishing down the road from my house etc before I get back into training for the Northern Hemisphere season and a hand full of local events. It's great to have the pressure of competition removed, for now anyway, and I can just get out for some freeriding.
Anyway until the next update, hope everyone is enjoying the sunny weather and all the white stuff around.