Ski in, ski out!

We have arrived in Canada!

We are sitting in our sweet room at Panorama Mountain which overlooks the main slopes,writing this blog, reflecting on the first 3 days on snow. Feeling a little stuffed from the high volume of skiing. Everything is soooo convenient, slopes, gym, hot pools right on the doorstep.  Would have to say, we love it here!

There were a few hassles getting over here... We were on board our plane at Auckland ready for departure, movies selected and soon were informed there was an oil leak and everyone would need to disembark the plane and switch to a new aircraft. Meaning we missed our connection flight to Calgary. Only hassle with that, was we got left with having to re-check in our luggage in Vancouver. Air New Zealand's deal with extra bags obviously didn't apply in Canada!!! It took some serious sweet talking for them to see it our way. Finally, after missing out on our first standby flight, we made it to Calgary.

More importantly our skiing feels good, it doesn't feel like we have been off snow at all. Right on track! We have been free-skiing and some training in brushes and hopefully gates tomorrow.

The snow here is a little lean with only 2 runs open at the moment. However, the guns will be going all night and snow is forecast on Sunday.

Check out the photos below and keep an eye out for our next post.

New Helmet set up!

Flying over Vancouver

Not a bad view from our room

Nick

Jamie- rocking his new Helly Hansen gear.

New endeavours

The most important news to kick off this post, Jamie is chasing a new dream! This season Jamie will be racing the World Cup circuit for Ski Cross.

Our second piece of exciting news is the contract we have signed with Shred and Slytech, brilliant protection gear with rad designs and graphics. Super stoked to be part of the Shred team!

So here is an outline of our plans with the departure date set for the 14th November.

We both head to Panorama, Canada for early season training. Panorama is an amazing mountain village set up with on snow accommodation and perfect slopes for start of the season technical progressions. After 2 weeks together, Jamie heads to Nakiska to work in with the Australian Ski Cross team in preparation for the first World Cup of the season in Nakiska December the 7th. He then makes his way onto Europe getting himself organised with equipment, car for a busy season chasing WC's all over Europe.

Nick will be joined at Panorama by Nils and Australian/ NZ athletes and this will be his training team for most of the season. The team will race the Nor-Am's and FIS series pre Xmas before continuing onto Europe, based in Leoganag, Austria at the Australian HQ.

The key event of this season will be the World Champs at Schladming, Austria. Located in the heart of the Mecca of ski racing this event is sure to be mind blowing. See picture below, Check out the Schladming 2013 website.

As for dryland training, both of us are feeling in great shape. We have added in some more variety to
our training and smashing the weights.

Is a busy time with University end of year exams. We have been cramming in the study, so the days are full with dryland and all the planning for NH. Nick has just finished his exams whilst Jamie has a harsh timetable, with his last exam on the last scheduled exam slot!!

Bring on the season 2012/2013.......

PS. Thank you very much to Ian and Anna Bright for their help and support with Atomic over the last 5 years.

For those who don't know, here is a video about ski cross.


If you like to see crashes, go to 2.25min

Teaser for World Champs- Schladming Austria, night slalom.

Study.... too much of this

Backyard start ramp!