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Posted on Tuesday August 30th at 9:13 a.m.
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Oh wow, finally got some time to myself to give you all an update.
Its been such a hectic couple of months, so sorry to everyone out there waiting to see what I have been doing.
Since my last update I was very busy over May and June trying to catch up on some work to pay for my NZ season and my time away in North America. May to July also saw me in dry land training and preparing for the NZ season with the biggest event on the NZ calander, the NZ Winter Games. My little man (Oliver) also takes up a lot of my spare time but I wouldn't change that for the world!
After the late start to the season I finally got stuck into my on-snow training. This was mostly riding up at Cardrona, working with my coach Adam Dooney, and fellow team mate Byron Raubenheimer in preparation for the 100% Pure NZ Winter Games. Its great to finally have a team mate on the NZ Para-Snowboard Team. Byron has only been riding for a couple of years and already looking pretty sharp.
The Winter Games rolled around super fast especially after starting the season 3 weeks late! I felt well prepared and racing on my home mountain is always a bonus.
The Winter Games Adaptive Boardercross also doubled as a WSF (World Snowboard Federation) Para-Snowboard World Cup so there was a lot riding on a good result.
I was super stoked after posting the fastest time in the first run with world number 1 Evan Strong only 0.4 seconds behind me. The second run down the course saw me make 2 very small mistakes in my run, costing me in the end with Evan going 0.2 seconds up on me and the rest of the field not to far behind. It all came down to the 3rd run, I laid down my fastest time of the day almost a second quicker that my previous run. Unfortunately for me Evan was just a bit faster on the day and I had to settle with the Silver medal. But super stoked on that though.
Mens podium. 1st Evan Strong USA, 2nd Me NZL, 3rd Keith Gable USA
Over the hip
Me carving thru a berm
So now the racing in NZ is over for the season and its back into training, building up to the X Games in Aspen in January. Cant wait to ride there and compete at such a massive event. World Championships also follow on pretty close behind the X Games so I will be looking for some top placings in both events. Watch this space....