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Brydon’s World Cup season begins By Rebecca Edwards Free Press Staff
H
ow comfortable do you feel driving at 120 kilometres per
hour? Now replace your car with a pair of racing skis, put a steep slope of packed snow where the road was and add floodlights and a noisy crowd of World Cup fans – welcome to Emily Brydon’s job. Fernie-born Brydon starts her downhill ski racing season at the Winterstart Bombardier World Cup in Lake Louise this weekend. This is likely to be Brydon’s last season on the racing circuit, which will take her to France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany – with a short interlude in Vancouver next February for the Winter Olympics. She has said she is planning to retire from ski racing at the end of the season. Speaking to The Free Press last month from the Canadian women’s training camp in Nakiska, Brydon described the race experience from the start gate to the finish line. “At the start gate there is the ideal situation then
there is reality. Sometimes they match up, other times they are two worlds apart. “We have a look at the course in the morning and that’s the time for memorizing the course, figuring out your line until it’s really in your brain. you have a certain amount of time to process that and put it in memory. “When I am in the start gate I want to release that, trust that memory and ski from my gut, from my heart, from all the miles I have put in over summer. You try for utter calmness and clarity.” The reality? “There are noises, parts of the course you skied in training and are worried about, pressure, you are mad at your coach or your teammate, your buckle broke, the weather conditions changed, there was a crash on the course so there is a hold up, maybe that’s a friend and a teammate and you don’t know how they are when you start your race. “There are so many things going through your mind that you have to try to block out and that is one of the things we train for.” Brydon says the average speed on a downhill
course is 115 to 120 km/h, although her fastest recorded time is 143 km/h. She adds: “That’s why we train all summer that’s what we work for, when you are in control and going at that speed it doesn’t feel that fast. “It’s like driving your car – in a nice car it doesn’t feel fast if you get into corners or hit a lot of hills, if you are in control it doesn’t feel so fast.” Brydon says she is generally in a state of “tunnel vision” until she crosses the finish line. “Sometimes you hear the crowd like if you come really close to the fences but in general you don’t really hear anything. “Visually you are so focused on your line and what’s coming up you don’t see anything else. You aren’t really focused on the finish line, you really are just so in the moment as soon as you cross the finish line you notice everything around you. “As soon as you cross the finish line there’s a results board you can see. The reactions you see are pretty real although if you had a bad race you can’t really have a hissy fit even if you really want to. There is a
Emily Brydon begins her World Cup ski racing season on Friday. Photo by Alpine Canada
lot of tact, composure and sportsmanship.” After the race comes media conferences for skiers on the podium, physio, video analysis of the race, a team meeting and then bed. At Lake Louise – the only Canadian World Cup race – Emily will have extra duties with sponsors of the national team as well as a welcome glimpse of familiar faces from Fernie. “It’s pretty hectic, there’s not a lot of downtime,” she says.
“My mom [Rosemary] will be coming up to see it, and a few friends but I won’t get to see them that much – they aren’t there to hang out, they know that. I will see them at the finish and I will try to see them in the afternoon.” The next few months Brydon knows she will spend more time with her team mates than anyone else – and that as well as being her greatest supporters in training, they will also be direct competitors come race time.
“It’s quite a unique situation - we’re a family, I spend more time with my team mates than anybody else, the ones who are married spend more time with us than their significant others. We see each other at the best and the worst times. “What is really unique is we all understand that we need each other in order to succeed but when you get to the start gate it is just you out there and we are competing against each other to be the best.”
Skaters talk about B.C. event By Rebecca Edwards Free Press Staff
A
group of skaters who attended the provincial sectional figure skating competition this year say it was a tough, but interesting experience to skate against the best skaters from B.C. and the Yukon Territories. Five out of six Kootenay region skaters who travelled to the the BC and Yukon Territories Sectionals in Richmond this year were from the Fernie Skating Club. In order to qualify they had to complete a series of skating tests. In the pre-juvenile category Anna Koltai placed 33rd and Jodi Stemberger placed 16th. In the juvenile category Gabrielle Runzer placed 20th and in pre-
novice Cera Atherton placed 53rd and Rachael Soukoroff placed 20th. Anna said: “I had to wait a long time until it was my turn to go on but I got to watch some of the others skating. I was really nervous because they were doing double jumps and everything, some of them did some cool spins that I want to try to do too.” As a result of competing in the provincial competition Cera and Gabrielle have also qualified for the B.C. Winter Games in Kitimat from March 4-7 next year. Last weekend Rachael Soukoroff picked up a bronze medals in the prenovice category at a competition in Calgary after coming third in both the long and short programs for her category.
(Left to right) Cera Atherton, Anna Koltai, Gabrielle Runzer, Rachael Soukoroff and Jodi Stemberger all competed at the B.C. and Yukon sectional ice skating competition in Richmond. Photo by R. Edwards
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Pee Wee Elk Valley Black Team Pee Wee Elk Valley Black Team took second place at the Pincher Creek tournament last weekend