Last week I headed over to Australia to race the ANC Cup slalom races and National Championships at Thredbo. Started in a rush with cancelled Jet Star flights and narrowly making the next available flight out of Queenstown but had an excellent time with my first experience skiing in Australia.  Many thanks to all the awesome people who helped out – rides to and from airport and Melbourne to Thredbo as well as a bed in Melbourne – thanks to the Laidlaws!  Accommodation and excellent food – big thanks to Gabi Robertson and Sam for squeezing us in.  Really appreciate everyone’s generosity which helped make for a memorable week!

Quite a different experience skiing among the gum trees!  Day one of the 4 Slalom races was postponed due to heavy rain the night before which made the snow turn to slush.  Luckily it froze a little the next night so we were able to race the National Junior Champs but the snow wasn’t so good. Day three – cancelled – more rain! Day four was exhausting with excellent weather and much better snow conditions so we had two races, National Champs and the first of the ANC cup.  And day five we finished up with another ANC Cup race.  All up I had some excellent runs but didn’t quite put two good runs together until the last day which went better. Was still well placed amongst some top athletes.. Pretty happy with my skiing and also picked up some ANC points as well as another sub 30 result which will help lower the FIS points.

Long drive back to Melbourne and then it was home to Queenstown for the start of the Winter Games and ANC Cup races at Coronet Peak the following day. Feeling the time difference first thing but ready for the giant slalom, unfortunately it was postponed due to snow conditions.

The New Zealand Winter Olympic mark for 2014