Blog (2009 - 2010)

Time to head home... (1 March 2010)

The Games were officially closed last night. It has all been and gone very quick. It's amazing how you can train for years of your life for the Olympics and in a matter of 16 days, it's all over and time to prepare for the next adventure in life!

I haven't had the experience here that I had in Salt Lake 2002. I got in to Vancouver pretty late because we were off training, arrived a day before our first training day, competed and now have had 5 days of the Olympics to enjoy! We had a night out to celebrate and let our hair down with all the Ski Cross crew. I got to the speed skating event, did a few interviews with Foxtel and basically caught up on some down time. I still had a good time here and have definitely taken a few things from this experience. I think Vancouver has been a very successful Games for Canada and us. The Canadian people really got into the events which made great atmosphere for the athletes.

I fly out today back to AUS, I'm pretty excited about that, it's been 4 months. It will be nice to enjoy some sun before the snow comes again

I plan to have surgery on the 9th of March for my ACL reconstruction so I will keep you posted on how things are progressing.

There are 4 more World Cups let on our tour which I obviously wont be able to do but look forward to joining the tour again next season

Thanks again for all your time and support, hope to see you all soon

Closing Ceremony Photos

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Games over... (26 Feb 2010)

I thought it was time to finally update my website even though i'm sure most of you are already aware of the results!

After going of one of the jumps on my qualifying run, collecting to much air time and nearly falling, I could hardly walk. I re-injured my knee on the first training day on the race course, again in warm up the day of the comp and one more time during my qualifying run!

I went back to your wax rooms, got some physio, a quick ice and a spin on the bike to flush out the lactate from my body and also sucked on some oxygen to help with recovery and things seem to get better. We re-strapped my knee, braced it back up and out I went for finals!

My knee was still feeling better to ski on then to walk on so I wasn't to worried about the comp.

I placed 15th after qualifying, made it through the first heat with Ashely MacIvor (Gold Medalist) but got pushed wide on the first turn by the Norwegian girl, was off course and lost my speed to clear the first two rollers. I tried to catch her on the way down but just didn't have enough speed so I was out after the 1/4 finals.

For sure I am a little disappointed, this put me into 13th on the Official Results. My goals prior to injury was to make the Big Final but after everything that has happened, I down graded to top 10... There isn't much more I could have done during the season to better this for myself due to my injuries. I guess I just have to be lucky I was even able to compete after my knee surgery 4 weeks ago.

I am also relieved that it was all over, that I could go back to relaxing and enjoying the sport and life. There has been a lot of pressure and stress and I think the Olympics are a very emotional time for everyone in a lot of ways.

I am so tired and am looking forward to coming home and putting my legs up for a while but first I will under go surgery to repair my ACL so that I can start rehabilitation to get back on snow as quick as possible. I will definitely take some time off once I'm more mobile after surgery.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone very very much for all your continued support over the years, its great to have you all behind me and couldn't have done it with out you all

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The BIG day has finally arrived! (22 February 2010)

Tomorrow is the BIG day, just in case any of you had forgotten!

In my previous "Update" I didn't give you the right times so please see below for the correct times

Pacific Time
Qualifying - 10:30am
Finals - 1:00pm

or

Australian Eastern Standard Time
Qualifying - 5:30am
Finals - 8:00am

Training has been going well. The course has some HUGE jumps but the TV doesn't do it any justice! My knee is holding up well and am feeling confident so I hope you can all watch and cheer me on!

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Kick off (15 February 2010)

I finally arrived in Vancouver, was in and out of there with in a few hours heading over to Vancouver Island for training before our comp starts.

We had an hour and a half drive to Mt Washington which was through torrential rain! I was a little worried that it might be raining at Mt Washington but we arrive in a heavy snow storm.

The Swedish Team have allowed us to train with them and they organise a course to be set up to pretty much the exact start of the Olympics course in Cypress.

Unfortunately with the snow fall, there was a lot of digging to be done but at least the sun was out and we all got to work on our pale winter faces!

Today the fog has rolled in so I had some time to send out an update to show off a few pics.

Congrats to Dale for his Silver last night. Alex Pullin is also in 1st after his qualifying run with Damon Hayler in 12th, fInals start in 2 hours so you know where i'll be sitting

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Vancouver... here I come! (11 February 2010)

I have one more day left of training over here in Quebec before I travel over to Vancouver on the 13th. The Opening Ceremony was the highlight of Salt Lake Olympics for me, walking into the stadium and when "Australia" was called out, the roar of the crowd was such a big adrenalin rush! I would love to be there again but we decided that training on snow was more important for me.

My skiing is back on track and feel that I'm skiing better then before my injury! We've had some great training over here, cold but great conditions!

We arrive in Vancouver on the morning of the 13th before collecting my uniform, then straight over to Vancouver Island for another bloke of training before our comp starts. Mt Washington have set up a Ski Cross course for us to train on along with the Swedish.

My knee has been going really well. I have been back on snow now for 5 days, I have no pain so my knee feels as good as new! I have been working close with Ashely and Bianca, our team physios, to get me back up and running. John Marsden has been over here helping my rehab on my knee and working me hard in the gym, i'm in great shape now and am feeling more confident in myself for Vancouver.

Over the past few days, we have been using Hyperbarric Oxygen Chamber . This is to fast track injuries in athletes but it is also used in a wide variety of ways such as sufferers with autism, stroke, traumatic brain injuries, surgical healing, soft tissue sports injuries etc. I'm not exactly sure of the idea behind it but it assists healing by activating the growth of new blood vessels, mobilising stem cells, reducing edema, enhancing the function of the immune system and eliminating toxins from the body to provide the trigger from activation of many of our body's normal healing processes. By increasing pressure inside the chamber they can provide proper levels of oxygen to promote healing in tissues that are difficult to heal and restore function in tissue that is not functioning correctly.

Basically, we were willing to give this a go in hope that it helped my healing process.

I am staying with the Australian Aerials team and had Jacqui Cooper introduce me to the ice bath! Jac has been icing all sorts of body parts in an ice bath over the years and as cold as it sounds...... it is!! A bin or bath is filled up with ice, a small amount of water is added, then you stick your injured body part in, leave it in there for 20 minutes and I can tell you, it hurts....! Well, until your leg goes numb anyway!!

After the Games, our World Cup season isn't finished, we are supposed to head back over to Europe after the Closing Ceremony but at this stage, I am unsure what my plans are. I will wait until after my event in Vancouver, to make the final call...

Olympic Time Table - Ski Cross

Vancouver time:
23 Feb 2010 - Women's Ski Cross event
Qualifying - 10:30am
Finals - 13:00

or

Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST)
24 Feb 2010
Qualifying - 5:30am
Finals - 8:00am

Put these dates in your diary so you don't forget! I will send out a reminder closer to the time. For those that have or are interested in getting Foxtel, Foxtel are hosting the Games LIVE and in FULL 24/7. Foxtel also have a "live online" broadcast for those that have to work! Channel 9 are also hosting the Games and are showing events at selected times through out the day/night.

Thanks again to everyone and your support over the years to help get me to Vancouver. The time has finally come and we're all very excited

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Officially Qualified & Surgery (23 January 2010)

I've officially qualified for the Vancouver 2010 Games which is great. At the moment, I am the only one on the Ski Cross Team but hope to not be alone. Katya Crema has her chance tomorrow so all wishes are with her, while Scott Kneller is a sitting duck due to his injury and should know by Monday whether he made the cut of not. Sami Kennedy is also waiting until the official date which is the 25th of this month, Monday. The Olympic Freestyle team will be officially announced on Monday.

I had surgery yesterday which went really well. There was a small piece of torn cartilage that Dr Andrew Chen removed and cleaned up. Dr Chen seems to think i'll be back on snow by the end of the week and back to full fitness if all goes well. There clinic here, 'The Alpine Clinic' is a great little place with a rehab centre so I will be in good hands here for a while.

I have 4 weeks until my event in Vancouver which gives me 3 weeks on snow training before the Games which is more than enough to get on top of things again

I am really happy I came here. Dr Chen is a great surgeon and his staff have all been very helpful with has been fantastic

I am already walking near 100%, doing leg raises, calf raises, I have full extension and this is just one day after surgery

Stay tuned for more positive email re my rehab over the next while!

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Good New or Bad...? (22 January 2010)

There isn't to much good news in this email but I will try and stay as upbeat as I can!!

We recently competed in Blue Mountain, Canada, and in the first heat, landing off a jump, once again injured my heavily strapped and braced knee. I continued down the course for a bit debating with myself whether I should stop and all I could think about was making things for my knee worse. I felt my tibia twisted the opposite direction to my femur and knew something was wrong straight away. I eventually decided to stop which leaves me with another DNF (Did Not Finish) this season but hopefully with a knee in better shape than it could have been!

I am now in a small town called Franconia in New Hampshire USA (where ski legend Body Miller is from) and I will be operated on today by Dr Andy Chen, to clean up another torn meniscus.

This will obviously keep me out of the last comp in Lake Placid before the Games and probably off snow for 2 weeks if all goes well. I do have 4 weeks until my event in Vancouver which is plenty of time to be back on snow and feeling ok but with this cherry on the cake, it basically ends my hopes for a medal which is a disappointing.

The past 11,5 months have been terrible for me! Hurdles after hurdles has been thrown in front of me either with injury, illness, equipment issues or personal issues. I'm hoping the bad luck will run out once 12 months go by since it all started to go downhill for me and maybe a hell of a lot of luck can be thrown my way in Vancouver!!

My results this season have suffered because of everything going on. I did take some time off the tour for some extra training and was going to continue with that after Lake Placid to try and get it all back together before the Games but that wont be possible now either

I am already totally unsatisfied with this season so I will be continuing next season (after a knee reconstruction when I return home) to reach some goals that I know I can reach. I do want a medal of some description so I'm happy to settle for a World Championship medal!

Out of my 19 years of competing internationally, this has been the toughest year yet with trying to stay positive, picking myself up again, which I have managed to do but it hasn't been easy!

I will obviously go to Vancouver and try my very best and hope to achieve a result which is respectable which would half satisfied me! It's great to be going to my second Winter Olympic Games but it is a disappointing that I'm not going for the reason I have worked hard over the past 3 years since it's become an Olympic event.

I will keep you all up to date on my rehab and recovery

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Missing in Action (16 January 2010)

Some of you may or may not have been aware that I took off from the world cup tour to go on a training period with my old alpine coach, Rich Lepage. My season hasn't been going the way I was hoping and with time running out, it was time to make some serious decisions on how to get myself skiing fast in the last two world cups before the Games.

Matt wasn't able to committee the time I needed with my team mates needed to qualify for the Games so with 100% trust in Rich, I contacted him and he was more than happy to help!

I spent the week training with him in Quebec Canada and my skiing has definitely improved. I hope to get some better results here in Blue Mountain and Lake Placid before we head back to Quebec for some more training before the Games

I just wanted to touch base in case some of you were wondering where I was or what was happening!

Hope you are all well and i'll be in touch again soon

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World Cup No.1 & 2 (28 December 2009)

First i'll start out with wishing everyone a Merry Christmas! It's a few days late and most of you are probably on holidays but "better late than never"!!

After 4 weeks of training in Nth American and Europe, the first two world cups have finally been and gone... The start of the competition season hasn't really gone to plan so far and was a bit upsetting but after overlooking my preseason training and the hurdles I faced (concussion, flu, torn meniscus, knee operation), I guess you can't expect miracles...

The first world cup events were held in San Candido, Italy on the 21 and 22 of December. We had Jacqui Gilbert, a massage therapist from NSWIS come along and help us out which was great. Jacqui has been travelling around Europe on holidays and kindly took the time to do some work with us which was fantastic because we were all in need of some TLC!

The course at San Candido wasn't exactly the best-built course the Ski Cross tour has ever come across but we have definitely had worse! The course was very flat, no real turns, flat, icy landings off jumps and no real technical aspect to it at all.

The morning of qualifying, I had woken with a bad cold so l didn't have much energy and my muscles were reacting really slowly. This didn't help and so in the first comp I didn't qualify fast and also miss-judged the start in the1st round of heats - this tossed me out of the race, first go.

The second comp, again I didn't qualify well. On the second jump down, I hurt my knee by compressing the popliteal muscle which made my qualifying run a little more difficult than it needed to be! I did finish the course but with a lot of hesitation and a bad line.

The Swiss physio made sure my knee was ok to ski on, we strapped it up super tight which made it feel a lot more supported and I was able to compete in the heats. As I was slow in my qualifying, I had the furthest start gate from the first turn 100m down the course.

This meant that the only way I was going to get through the first round was to jump the start, which I managed to do perfectly! I came through in second after a pretty good pass on the 1st turn, which put me through to the 1/4 finals. Unfortunately, I tried the same trick again but jumped a little too early and couldn't make it past the others. I ended up placing 13th overall.

After the disappointment of the first day, Matt and I sat down and made some goals to progressively reach over the next few comps. I guess I had been hoping to come straight in to the first event and kick-ass but after looking hard at my southern pre-season winter, we had to re-adjust for some realistic goals. We both know I can be the best out there, but it's going to take some hard work and patience to get myself back to where I need to be. We will take this one day and one comp at a time, so that I am peaking come February.

We are now on Christmas break for 5 days until we start up training again in Austria. The next world cup is on 5 January 2010 so I will be in touch again then

I wish you all the very best in 2010 and a happy and safe holiday season

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I also have a "Trivia Night Fundraiser" coming up for those that don’t already know, on the 12th of November in Sydney… This event is to help me raise money to see me through up until the Olympics and for after as well. The Olympic Winter Institute look after my program cost pre Games which come from the AOC and Australian Sports Commission. I am also on a International Olympic Committee program grant that also helps out with costs towards my program. If you would like to come along to my trivia night, please click on the image below and again for all event details)

The Australian Olympic Committee look after us very well once we’ve qualified for the Games and cover all cost for us getting to the games, during and then getting home.

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http://corporate.olympics.com.au/news.cfm?ArticleID=10285

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