Date: 17th of January 2008

Hi All,

The snowboarders split into two groups this morning and both spent the morning riding the park but with different focuses. Matesy had his group on the jump where Henry worked on some nice backside 360s. Beggsy was working on the finer points of style with his group, concentrating on core strength and upper body position and also worked on a few switch drills between laps of the park. Jordy was really riding well before lunch and the results were really showing in his 180s off the rollers. Jamie was trying some nice noseslide pretzels out on the up flat box while Oli was working on his jumps which are now super smooth. He even managed a few tail grabs today and even started working on backside 360s. Just before lunch the groups joined and had a few speed laps of the park together. Steve and Emma were really doing well of the 25ft jump which they started hitting for the first time today.

After lunch the crew went straight back to the park and played there for the remainder of the afternoon session. Progression across the board was amazing today with Jordy hitting the battleship box successfully for the first time and even had a go at his first rail today. Nath stepped up and completed the flat down rail today with some styley 5050s. Jamie did his first backside 180s off the 25ft jump while Emma, Greg and Steve all landed the jump nicely with some nice straight airs.

This alpine boarders headed out on race boards in the morning for some technical GS runs on the perfectly groomed runs. The snow was awesome and the girls did really well and worked on correcting some of their old habits and trying to become more aggressive.
Ash had some really good turns; carving more and working with her lower body position while Chrisy worked on her heal side turn and managed to pick it up a level in her aggressiveness. Julia focused on her hips and forward movement while she was carving and she also rode very well. In the afternoon they headed out on soft boots to practice over the rollers again and the continued work is paying off as the girls and are now jumping with a lot more confidence.

Chris and his freeski group headed for their usual warm up and then decided on the plan for the day. The unanimous decision plan for the day was to hit the park and film especially with all the new feature that have been added over the past week.  Chris had the camera for the morning and captured plenty of footage of all the gang.  Kate had a stand out day with slides on the big box at the bottom as well as doing the flat down box were she jumped sideways for the last down section.  Mike started to come together in the afternoon after a slow morning and had some great slides and was working on his 180’s on the rollers.  Bassett was stepping up to the big box sideways which she isn’t far off from nailing cleanly.  Conrad was all over the park this morning hitting up the big flat bar and flat down with 270 off as well as dialling in the C boxes.  Piers was building up to the big box and has almost got it the whole way.  A little more focus he’ll make it to the end every time.  In the arvo it was a bit of the same but this time Hamish took the camera and let Chris join in the fun and the group sessioned the park hitting everything they could find. They skied to nearly last chair because everyone was having a great time.

Ridley just remembered something from a week or so back that he forgot to mention to me. During training for the competition a number of our mogul athletes were made into small time movie stars. A very small film crew from a Vancouver TV station were filming on course while the AWSC mogul crew were out there. The next night at 6pm the group huddled in front of Channel 11 on cable and sure enough, there they were, hard at work stepping, slipping and shovelling the new bumps course with Jeremy from Silver Star Freestyle getting some great camera time with a full interview. A number of the athletes had some great close ups while on course and also strutted their stuff with some turns down the side of the course.

The mogul group again got the chance to let their hair down for the morning with a videoing session in the park. All athletes were riding really well with many sliding a good majority of boxes and rails in the park. You will be able to view a lot of today’s footage in the end of camp DVD.

The group spent the afternoon on the moguls course training on the bottom jump. All athletes stepped up with Alex W stomping great corked 720’s. Brodie came down hard on a few 720’s and was forced to sit out the rest of the session with some severe shin bang. Alex E put down some great 360’s however has to continue working on larger air and forward pressure. Annabel landed some more great 360’s while Alex C and Bryn were also working hard on 720’s with both, unfortunately having little or no success, better luck next time fellas!

The alpine racers had a varied training day today with a night session scheduled. Training for the day started at 2.00pm with a technical freeski. The plan then was to have a fun intraclub SL race under lights. They were scheduled to have training from 4-5pm and then 4 timed runs under lights on Milky Way, the main night skiing run. Unfortunately this afternoon there was an accident on the double chair (the only lift that access the night skiing run) so they kept it closed for the entire night – so you guessed it, plans were scrapped. Bugger!!!!

Lunch today another one Emma’s super soup, tomato and winter vegetable and we also had plenty of rounds of toasted ham and cheese sandwiches plus the regular sandwich bar (go the egg and lettuce!!!!). Dinner was the world famous shepards pie. This about the 3rd time it’s come out during the camp and still keeps better and better.

Pinky today goes to Jamie Callis for an incident that occurred yesterday. He was getting off the Comet Express and managed to fall over and take everyone out. Now this is a normal occurrence, but not usually for a man of his abilities!
Well that’s about it today,

Tonight’s activity was movie night down in Vernon with Chris and Ridley piloting the vans to see ‘Bucket List” The movie was apparently very good and all had a good night.

That’s it for today.

Stowie