Happy Holidays

Our first month is all finished and yes it has been a frustrating one!! The lack of snow, followed by the continuous snow storms has made it tough to find hard snow. Guess it just shows how much our sport is at the mercy of the skies. However we have managed to find pockets of quality training where we can.

So far we have had one race in Solda, Italy, with a ridiculous field of 190 men!! It was good to get our first race out of the way even though the performances weren't so flash.

We hope everyone has had a relaxing festive season and we can't wait to move forward into the year of 2012!!

Brunnen Sunset

Training in Italy

Amazing day

Nick

Nick- after

Jamie

Willis

Pirmin- 360 gone wrong...

Switzerland!

Hallo from Brunnen, Switzerland!!

We have now been here for 10 days and finally the snow has decided to fall.

Our base in Brunnen is a neat town on the edge of Lake Luzern, the views from our rooms are incredible! The set up here is perfect and the slopes of Engleberg, Andermatt and Stoos will be awesome training for us this season.

Due to the lack of snow in Europe we were forced to climb higher into the mountains, so we headed up to the Saas Fee glacier. We had a great time there and a productive back to basics start on snow. It was a unique experience skiing on a glacier and it was a little freaky to see a crevasse opening up in the middle of the T-Bar.

We are now back in Brunnen ready to wind into the season and begin our FIS careers racing in Europe begininning on the 15th of December in Haus im Ennstal, Austria.

Nick would like to make special note and thanks to the Snowvision Foundation for getting behind him with their support and he looks forward to working with them over the next 12 months. 

Second round of thanks goes to Formthotics and Snowvision (again), from Jamie who is thrilled to receive the 2011 Formthotics Snowvision Performance Award for the Senior Division. With Formthotics as the most respectable and biggest selling ski foot beds in the European market, you can be sure we will be giving our sponsors as much exposure as possible.

We are both really excited to be in Europe and can't wait to get our racing season underway!!!

Check out some pictures below.

Our base in Brunnen

Bottom of Saas Fee!

A tight squeeze in the tram (90 people)

Training at 3700metres (Mt cook 3754m)

Final part of the journey up to the top -A train through the mountain 

At the top- 360 degree Panorama (click for large photo)

Saas Fee

New sturdy house design for CHCH

Dryland training

15 more days!!!

This Northern Hemisphere Season we are going to be based in Brunnen, Switzerland on the edge of Lake Lucerne training with the World Ski Connects programme. We will be joining co-National Team member Willis Feasey and will be coached by Cedric Maret from Crans Montana, Switzerland. Really excited to be going to Europe!!

We depart for Zurich on the 19th November, with a stop off in Sydney for a couple of days hitting the beach at Manly.

Brunnen is really well placed to cover all the FIS races in western Europe. This year Nick will compete in the World Junior Champs in Roccaraso, Italy.

Look out for our continuing updates throughout our NH season!!!

With changes to our fitness programme, preparations have been going really well. We have just finished a huge week of training, legs are well and truly dead, but feeling quicker and more explosive than previous years!

Wrap up

Now is a good time to fill everybody in on how our season panned out and we have also included a video from our Spring Speed Camp.

The Winter Games continues to develop as a World-class Alpine event, with fields that would compete impressively at Europa Cups in both the Slalom and GS.

The introduction of the Super-G at Mt Hutt was a great addition to the competitive calendar and it is always good to chill in Methven for a couple of days. We had a great race with amazing weather and primo conditions, Nick managed an 8th, placing 2nd Kiwi. The following day was backed up with the NZ Nationals Super-G where Jamie took out 3rd Open Kiwi.

Back down in Queenstown for the Tech portion of Nationals, Nick picked up 2nd Junior and 3rd Open Male in the GS and Jamie took the bronze in the Slalom for Open Men.

To wrap up the seasons racing, we headed back to Hutt for the ANC Finals. On the first day of the Super-G's Nick finished a very credible 6th place (first Kiwi) and became the leading Australiasian for Super-G in the cup standings. Unfortunately costly mistakes ruined his chances of winning the ANC Super-G title in the final race, ending up 3rd for that category. It was disappointing not to race the GS again due to weather, as everyone loves the GS at Mt Hutt.

On reflection of our results this season we are disappointed not to perform to our potential and despite 100% effort on and off the snow, we came up short on the winning formula, but that's just ski racing and we will learn from that.

To cap off our season we were fortunate to have 5 awesome days Super-G at Mt Hutt with Nils and also training with Italian Ski Team member, Enrica Cipriani and US Ski Team coach Chris Knight. Check out our video we made of the camp.

All in all, we have learnt valuable lessons from this season and expect to see positive changes as we approach the next season.

We would like to thank, our sponsors for the ongoing support, our coach Nils Coberger, all the people who have supported us and most importantly Mum and Dad for all their help!!!!

We will have an update out in the next couple of weeks which will inform you all of our plans for the NH winter.

Hope you like our video below, remember to press the HD button!

Let the racing begin!

Lake Wanaka from the air- overnight trip to CHCH for Uni test

We have just finished the Japanese FIS series at Coronet Peak, tough races due to a combination of soft snow and a high level of athletes from many different national teams competing. We had mixed results with some great skiing in sections but disappointed to not put complete runs together. However valuable lessons learnt for the upcoming Winter Games starting with the GS on Monday, SL on Wednesday and then up to Mt Hutt for the Super G which we are both excited for!

Below is a short video that team mate Ben Griffin put together of some ice skating/ Hockey on a natural pond below Coronet.

Jamie GS- (photo credit- Martin Barwood)

Snow from the recent storm!

First races of the season

We have just completed our first race series of the season at Cardrona. Surprisingly it wasn’t freezing cold and windy, which was awesome!!!

Nick GS- (Photo credit- Martin Barwood)

First day was the GS. The snow was soft and the course was flat, but both of us made it through the first run unscathed in 3^rd (Nick) and 7^th (Jamie) respectively. Nick made a mistake on his second run putting him out of contention. A minor mistake at Cardrona can lose you seconds. Jamie improved from his disappointing first run by winning the 2nd run by half a second and moving himself into 2^nd, scoring a personal best 33 point result.

In the Slalom soft snow once again was the issue, however both of us skied solidly. Jamie finished 3^rd with a 37 pointer.

We were both happy with the series, Nick, a little disappointed to not score a result, but learnt a lot from the races. For us it was a progress race leading towards the Nationals and ANC’s later in the season!!

Jamie Podium- (photo credit- Guenther Birgmann)

Moving forward we have been training at Coronet Peak on a bullet proof injected piste and rubbing shoulders with some world class skiers. It truly is an amazing environment to be in! Other than that we have been trying to fit in studying for our mid semester Uni tests, starting next week.

We will keep you posted on our results in the JAP FIS races in two weeks time.

Over and out.

Check out a short video below we made messing around in the snow.

Also check out this video of the alpine promo for the upcoming Winter Games, they spent a morning filming our team. Thought it came up pretty well! they got some pretty amazing shots.

Back to Business

It’s been a long time since we have updated our blog, so we thought it was about time to let everyone know what we have been up to!! Check out our teaser video below!



An update on Jamie’s shoulder is that he doesn’t need surgery at this stage, which is great news. He fractured the head of the humorous, also had cartilage damage to the joint and a slap tear to the bicep anchor. As of now it is getting better but still causes him pain at times, slowly getting better!

Following our NH season we began at University of Canterbury after weeks of delays due to the Earthquake. The semester ran fairly smoothly and we have both enjoyed the start of our first year at UC! Results are starting to come out following our exams and we both have been really happy with the high grades we have been achieving.

On the Dryland side of things, we smashed out a lot of gym work during our off season training and also a decent amount of road cycling and swimming for aerobic fitness. We made some huge weight gains of about 7 kg’s putting us both around the 90kg mark. This was shown through PB’s in our squats and Dead lifts reaching weights of 140kg in squats and 170kg in dead lifts, (Jamie had 10kg more in both exercises, bugger!! But Nick is close.)

Also check out our video of one swimming session at Jellie Park. Special thanks to Southern Approach for providing us with a GoPro camera to help capture moments of our careers. These are amazing powerful cameras, highly recommend!!!!. We hope to make viewing more exciting with regular videos throughout the season.



As of right now we have just completed a 5 day block of ‘back to snow’ training at Coronet Peak. The amount of open terrain was limited; however, we managed to get a lot out of the week. Looking ahead we hope to get going with some drill courses and build into the gates, fingers crossed this massive storm continues to bring more snow.

Looking out the window right now it is super exciting to see the Remarkable’s blanketed in snow. We have about 15cm out on the deck! Finally the snow has arrived!!!!

We have just included a ‘follow by email’ box. (Scroll up then on the right hand side below the sponsors -->), it doesn’t take a second to enter your email address and activate it, you will automatically receive an email when we update our blog so you can stay up to date with the latest news.

The High's and Low's of Ski Racing

Mammoth...

Nick - Mammoth 1st place

Again we made the trip down to Mammoth, however this time it was for 2 GS’s. We had the added bonus of our Mum and Dad flying into Mammoth the day before the first GS. It was great to have the whole family together because it would be the last time till July when Sam gets back from University in Vienna, Austria.

Jamie was suffering from a shoulder injury he received from a day of training prior to the races, but had decided he could still race.

We were training GS early morning and the sun had still not fully risen hence the light was a little flat. Jamie didn’t see a lip over a road in the snow at the bottom of the course and juiced the ski right on the bump sending him flying and landing heavily on his shoulder.

On the first day we were both super pumped to place first and second for the race. Nick skied two awesome runs, deservingly earning the win and Jamie battled his way down in pain from his shoulder to hold onto second place. This was Nick’s first ever FIS win and podium, a goal he had been striving to achieve for the season. It was even better that we pulled it off in front of all the family with a Prebble 1, 2!

The second day Nick did it again, making his weekend a very successful one, coming away with the double victory. Jamie decided he wasn’t going to race to try and save himself for the upcoming Nor-am Super-G in Aspen, CO.

Drive through Colorado

We headed back to Truckee with burnt faces and dirty goggle tans from the two days of sunshine where we would fly out the next morning to Denver, CO to begin preparations for the North American Cup (Nor-Am) Super-G’s.

We began our preparations in Winter Park, CO before we headed to Aspen Mountain for the two races- Super Combined and Super-G.

The race track was sweeeeeeet!!! It is a very technical slope with some very steep sections and a handful of blind turns which lead to inspection and how you dialled the line to be the key in doing well on the hill. We knew that we had a disadvantage over the rest of the field because they had skied the hill for 5 days in the Downhill’s prior to the Super-G’s, however we backed our abilities and we knew we could do it!

Aspen pitch

The first day the start was delayed due to light snow, but the race soon got under way and we got a helping hand in the weather as the light improved around bib 30 for us to come down running 35 and 41. Jamie struggled to perform to his potential as his shoulder continued to hinder his performance and a couple of mistakes with his line left him too far off pace. Nick skied a wild run but nailed the line and putting him in 17^th place. It was soooo much fun!!!! He scored a 36 point result his best ever FIS result which will give him guaranteed C team status for the upcoming Southern Hemisphere and puts him in 12^th place in the world for his age in Super-G.

In the Slalom leg Nick dropped down to 28^th but still managed to pick up some Nor-Am points. Jamie again decided to not race his Slalom leg because the pain was too great cross blocking Slalom gates.

Day 2. Nick again performed strongly placing 35^th and scoring a 45 point result. Jamie was frustratingly forced to not start as his shoulder was not right to race.

Nick Podium

We then made the 3 hour drive to Steamboat for the Colorado Surefoot Cup consisting of a GS and 2x Sl. The first day of GS proved to be quite successful with Nick continuing his form, placing 2^nd after the first run and just slipping to 3^rd after the second run with a slightly disappointing run. Jamie was 4^th after the first run but a big mistake second run cost him time. In the next two days of slalom Nick had mixed runs first day and unfortunately DNF’ed the second day. Jamie did not race the first slalom however attempted to race the second day and could only manage the very first section before skiing out, dam shoulder!!!!

We will keep you updated on what is the diagnosis of Jamie’s shoulder, as of right now he believes he has done something to his ‘Coracoid’ but he will know more after we are back in NZ and Jamie has had scan’s and a detailed analysis. This proved to be frustrating for Jamie as he had started skiing really fast because of a combination of his new boots and some technical changes, but that’s ski racing and it has made Jamie super hungry to get back on snow in NZ!

We are now making the 14 hour trek back to Truckee for our last few days in the US and we hope to catch the end of the 10 feet of powder they have received over the past week!!!!

Last night we found out about the tragic news of the deadly earthquake back home in Christchurch. Thankfully our family is all ok but it sounds like we will be returning home to our city in a rubble mess. Our thoughts go out to the families that have lost loved ones and to those that have lost their home's. Hang in there Christchurch, this is our home!

California Sun

Sunset

Results are coming!

Big Sky, Montana

We made the 12 hour trek north to Jackson, Wyoming, for 3 days of training prior to the series beginning, so we could get some great training preparation on the race hill. We had a super sweet build up and we were both posting fast times in the timed training course.

Unfortunately we struggled to lay down fast times in both the GS races, however Nick did manage to ski a decent 4th run, placing 5th on the run. There are some small details we need to tweak in GS which is frustratingly holding back the fast skiing.

In the Slalom's Jamie skied really sound and scored a nice 45 pointer which is his second best Slalom result.

Jamie Podium

Onwards and upwards to the freezing works of Big Sky, Montana for two Super-G's. We were really looking forward to these races as we were seeking redemption in Super-G after our under par performances in Winter Park, CO. The race was delayed for a number of hours because the temperatures were too cold to run the lifts. It was a freezing -34 degrees C! Quite a shock to the system compared with sunny California.

The hill there was a reasonably easy Super-G. A true gliders paradise! And also what we ended up finding out after the first day- you needed to nail the wax call.

The first day we both made small point scores, we skied solidly, Jamie finished in 6th place and Nick 10th place however we new there was lots of time to be made in our ski preparation.

Proof of the Cold! (Fahrenheit!)

The second day...We came out feeling our skis were running faster, after deciding not to wax for the second race due to the temperatures being so cold. This proved to be a smart move.

Jamie running bib 1 set the line for the seed to follow and raced very aggressively. He had a slight scare near the bottom where his body went through the panel of a gate but managed to finish without losing too much time. Jamie ended up in 3rd place and made a big points score, reducing his Super-G points by 6. He was super stocked to make it on the podium and to stand alongside two US ski team members.

Nick was chasing the tail of Jamie but was dissatisfied finishing 9th.

After the long drive Back to Truckee, we have started the build up towards the final stretch including races in Mammoth, CA and Nor-Am Super-G's in Aspen, CO and to finish it off 2xSl and one GS in Steamboat Springs, CO before heading home to NZ!

Check out the video below of our last month racing and training.

Surf in San Francisco

We had two days off after our last race series in Sugar Bowl, so 8 of us guys decided to drive the 4 hours to San Francisco for a well needed break. Special thanks to our team mate James Clifford and his parents for letting us stay in his impressive house overlooking the San Francisco bay. Our first day was spent checking out the Golden Gate Bridge, which we all found pretty astounding. Later on we played some American Football on a sandy beach, enjoyed the warmth in the sun before heading to downtown San Fran and checked out the city centre including the interesting hippie Haight St....

The next morning we woke up early and headed over the hill to Bolinas Beach where we went for a surf!!! It was such a sweet day and we were soooo excited to be able to go surfing in San Fran. The water was dam cold and luckily we avoided the great white sharks everyone had told us about. Great times though our arms were wrecked afterwards.

Now back to Truckee for some cold weather.

Way too much driving!

Night Slalom

We left Truckee, buried under a fresh 2 feet of powder and after an epic 16 hour drive we arrived in Colorado to race at Steamboat Springs Colorado and Winter Park for 2xSl, 2xGS, 2xSG series. The first Slalom was a night race which was pretty exciting, a different experience for us as we had never raced under lights before. Jamie scored a small result in the second slalom, which was a promising boost for the season ahead. Unfortunately both of us struggled in GS and SG, the soft snow was something we were not very accustomed to and we found it difficult to put clean runs together.

Christmas Dinner!

After 24 hours of draining driving we made it to Mammoth Mountain, California to spend Christmas with our brother, cousin and friends, it was great to catch up with them. There was a crazy amount of snow there after receiving around 5.5 m of snow just in December! We had an adventurous Christmas Day exploring this huge mountain and testing out our new powder skis. That evening we had an amazing Christmas dinner with a large group of New Zealanders alongside some Australians and Americans. There was an unbelievable amount of food including a 'choice as' Pavlova!

Huge rock jump powder day

After Christmas we were treated to 2 feet of fresh snow at Sugar Bowl falling overnight which lead to an epic powder day! It is important to have these days away from the race lane and ski the powder, shred all over the mountain and just have a really fun time.

We had a week of productive training building towards the Park City Tech races, with bluebird sunshine everyday and the surface bullet proof from watering injection efforts. Nick discovered new feelings in his Slalom and we both continued to develop speed in training. We were feeling confident to perform in the upcoming races.

Park City bottom of GS/ Shaun White in Super pipe

It was a great feeling going to Park City as it brought back memories of our Family Ski trip to Utah in 2004. The first two races were FIS University races, they were both very tough races. The field was strong and the formally World Cup piste was challenging with ankle braking bumps we had to charge through. However.... Our Confidence on the hill grew for the 2 remaining FIS Elite GS races, the weather was cold and the snow set up to be a great surface. Nick finally raced as he has been training with 2 impressive runs to score a result of 40 points. He was so relieved to have laid one down after his disappointing prior results in Colorado and in the University races. In the 2nd GS both of us were skiing fast but frustratingly we both blew it on the 3rd to last gate. Guttered!!! The Slalom’s were held at Snowbird half an hour away from Park City. Both coming away scoring results in the 2nd Slalom which we were super stoked about.

To wrap up this racing period, we ended with two Slaloms on our home hill here at Sugar Bowl. We were super pumped to be racing at home on the hill we have been training on for the last month. Nick had a frustrating two races straddling the first and Dnf'ing the second. Jamie skied sound but struggled to find the little extra speed he needed to move onto the podium.

Keep your eyes peeled for our next blog after our races in Jackson, Wyoming in the next couple of weeks.