Tag Archives: Coronet Peak

Racing Underway

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Excited to start the New Zealand season on some new gear, joining the Volkl, Marker and Dalbello Family!  Many thanks to Eric Wolf, Racing Management for time spent getting such a good fit with the new Dalbello Boots.

       

After the initial back on snow basics at the Remarkables and then more strength and conditioning, it was full on training mode at Rocky Gully, Coronet Peak.  It has been interesting working on the new test Volkl skis trialing a few different models to see which ones work best for me.  Getting there but still need a bit more testing in some better snow conditions.

Coronet Cup Slalom

Racing seemed to start quickly as still in training mode. Weather and snow conditions weren’t the best so the first giant slalom series at Cardrona were postponed and the fog and tricky snow conditions on new gear for the slalom were a challenge.  A little more training and it was straight into the National Championship races at Coronet Peak this week.  Second day of giant slalom for the Coronet Cup I got a better feel for the conditions and put down the 3rd fastest second run.The first three days were pretty mixed with poor visibility in cloud/fog and soft snow that was quite sugary and not a lot of it in places.  For the final day of slalom we saw blue sky for the first time in days and the snow held up really well after a good freeze the previous night.

Coronet Cup Giant Slalom

At the end of the day I was pleased to have retained the National Slalom title and also to have picked up the Giant Slalom title. Many thanks to all my sponsors for your continued support and belief in my progress.

Damp slalom day
Early morning sunrise
Coaches corner, almost sunny
Giant Slalom

Kiwi Winter 2018

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Coronet Peak June 2018

View over Wakatipu Basin from Coronet Peak

Following on from a bit of down time catching the last of summer, I had a great build up of strength and conditioning (thanks to Ben Griffin’s programme) getting ready for the  Kiwi Winter 2018. I also got to experience a WIM HOF workshop in Paradise, Glenorchy learning to be comfortable while uncomfortable, experiencing Cold Therapy, Breathing and Commitment – thanks to the team, I certainly took a lot away from the weekend with some good tools to work with.

Plenty of good weather left in Autumn for dryland training before the first of the snow arrived so took the opportunity to get on the bike as well as hitting the gym.

Autumn
Arrowtown track
Murphy’s Run

In no time at all it was back on snow at The Remarkables for our first camp, back to basics with the NZ Ski & Coberger Team.  We had excellent conditions for so early in the season with plenty of snow cover and good weather.

Excited now for some equipment testing of new skis and boots arriving very soon. In the meantime, more strength and conditioning before our next on snow training block starts.

Shout out to the Skeggs Foundation for their continued support.  Check out their page, and while you are there, why not look at getting a Skeggs fuel card to help out numerous athletes!

2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics

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Stunning experiences in Korea but the journey is not over. Back to Austria now and I will be racing again next week in Kranjska Gora! Thank you to everyone for all the kind words and support!! It was unbelievable to walk into the opening ceremony with team NZ and all the other great nations.

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Our first race was scheduled for the 15th so we were able to get in some great training prior to the races, as well as getting used to the time zone and conditions.

Training at Yongpyong
Checking out the start gate
Training
Freezing -20 not to mention chill factor
Awesome Shred!

A number of races were rescheduled due to strong winds with our first race postponed a day. First up was an amazing day for the Super G at Jeongseon – unfortunately made a pit stop near the top and lost my speed.  Managed to save it but unable to pick up those lost seconds.  Giant slalom on the 18th – while I had some great sections I just had too many time costing mistakes to put me in the top 30 which meant I missed the valuable advantage of making the flip.  I was happy with my slalom however was not able to finish my run.

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And the closing ceremony – a few images although we missed it as had to leave early to be back to our base in Austria to continue training for the next world cup race in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia.

A few images of my experiences in South Korea – with a number of interviews, family visits, trips to the beach to explore the Fire Art Festa at Gyeongpo Beach, food people and places

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After a real roller coaster ride, it is farewell to South Korea with another incredible experience to add to my journey and I now need to work hard to regroup and re-energize for the next World Cup.

Pyeongchang 2018

Farewell 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics!!

Austria 2018 28th Feb

Back in Austria now in time for the “Beast from the East” big Chill for Europe

Farewell NZ – Hello NH!

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Final round-up to the season came with the Snow Sports Awards at Wanaka where I picked up the Alpine Athlete of the Year award and my coach Nils Coberger picked up the Coach of the Year. (below with Corey Peters Adaptive Athlete of the year)

Coach of the year
Alpine Athlete of the Year
Award Winners

The last couple of weeks of my brief taste of summer at home went far too quickly but managed to get in some quality strength and conditioning sessions with Ben Griffin and the team.   Also had time for the odd bike ride and a few Pilates sessions.  One Studio  organized a really interesting session for us at the Auckland University wind tunnel where we worked on finding our best tuck positions.

Seven Mile
Wilson Bay
Wind Tunnel

We headed over to Europe a little earlier this year as we get ready to start training on the World Cup piste at Sölden, Austria and arrived into Munich on the 16th October to a pleasant 20º C  blue skies and looking very green!  It will take a few days to get used to the time zone but after that long series of flights we were pretty exhausted.  We then made our way south of Innsbruck, Austria towards our base for the next couple of weeks where we will be training before the first World Cup at the famous Sölden!

Many thanks again to all my sponsors, supporters, friends and family.  It is going to be a big season and I’ll do my best to keep you up to date.

Racing Underway

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Racing is now well under way with the Cardrona FIS Series and Coronet Peak National Champs completed.  Bit of a mixed bag with weather and snow conditions making for some tough and long days.  One and a half giant slalom races before blizzard conditions cancelled the second day of racing at Cardrona. Bit frustrating as day one with errors of the flats in soft snow cost too much time for me, but day two produced a good run before gale force winds closed lifts.  Had a 45 minute wait at the bottom of Valley View waiting for bus ride back to base buildings and more waiting before race called off some time later from continued winds and fresh snow. Racing at Coronet Peak was also a mixed bag of results and snow conditions.  Too much warm and wet weather saw one of the slalom race days cancelled and tricky conditions for the remainder.  I was a bit frustrated with my giant slalom being a bit slow in the National Champs – congratulations to team mate Willis Feasey for taking out the title again.  Day two with a good clean fast run but a mistake at the bottom second to last gate cost me a DQ which was disappointing.   First day of slalom was cancelled after a night of heavy rain but we were lucky the following night with conditions freezing allowing the National Champs slalom race to go ahead.  I was frustrated after the first run with mistakes and no timing board but put a strong second run down.  I retained the National Slalom title and managed to score my best result in a slalom race (14.08).  Placed 5th overall with just 0.28 sec off the winner .

A little time now for some more training before we head over to Australia for the first of the ANC series which run 21st – 25th August.

Slalom title
GS title
Slalom Course
Slalom Course
Coronet Peak

Early morning start at Rocky Gully, Coronet Peak.

Many thanks again to all the volunteers, Coronet Peak and Race Department, coaches, athletes, parents and all the amazing sponsors and supporters for all your time and contributions to my sport!

A New Season as the Snow Arrives!

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Many thanks to the Bruce Grant Youth Trust and Altitude Brewing for your generous support towards my sporting career.   I am honored to be a recipient this year, which is an important one as we head in to the next winter Olympics.

On snow training kicked off a few weeks ago, six days at The Remarkables with back to basics drills where conditions held up well considering the early season snow levels.  This was followed up by a strength and conditioning camp and some more testing where I was pleased to produce some personal best results going into the start of our New Zealand season. Our strength and conditioning coach, Ben Griffin, has been keeping us on track with great support. On snow training is now underway at Coronet Peak and it’s great to see some much needed snow falling.  Rocky Gully is up and running and the snow and cold temperatures this week will make for some excellent training conditions.

Thanks heaps Phil & Julie – The Roof Box Company – loving the roof box.  It fits a great number of skis in as we head up the hill for training each day – six pairs of slaloms this morning which would have been an issue in the vehicle along with bags, boots, poles and all the assorted equipment not to mention athletes and coach!  The coming weeks will be busy with training as we gear up for the first races of the season, starting at the end of July.

Coronet Peak at dusk

End of Season Review

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It’s been a long season but I am now back home after a couple of weeks getting away from the winter life, enjoying company of friends, warmth and  a change of scenery in Utah and also exploring a very small part of my home country.  Thanks Tucker Marshall for the Utah images!

Beach rugby
Moab Arch
Friends at Moab
Exploring Moab
with Tyler

And a quick road trip visiting some pretty cool spots around the South Island, NZ

By the light of the Stars
Hot Pools
Hokitika
Sunrise
Wharf at Kaikoura

To cap off this Season, I have posted the review by my coach, Nils Coberger and his take on our season!

TO ALL OUR FRIENDS, SPONSORS AND SUPPORTERS,

Warm in Aspen!

What a season 2016/17 has been for the New Zealand Men’s Ski Team, arguably our most successful in 25 years! Adam Barwood and Willis Feasey went from strength to strength during the northern hemisphere campaign. The season started early November in Colorado at our base in Dillon where we had four weeks of excellent training at Copper Mountain. When the racing season started in December we moved to Panorama, Canada to focus on the Nor-Am tour. Kicking off in Panorama the boys achieved some great results. At the 2nd Panorama Nor-Am Super G, Adam skied from bib 47 into 3rd place and followed that up with two 4th places in the Slaloms. Willis finished 4th in the next day’s Super-g and then 7th in the GS. After eight weeks on the road in North America it was time for a well-earned break so we headed home to spend time with our families over Christmas and New Year’s.

Soon enough we were back in Europe and racing again. Our first World Cup was in Adelbolden, Switzerland and the boys got valuable World Cup experience after having Beaver Creek cancelled in November. Having had just ten days in Europe we were off to South Korea and the Olympic test event in Yongpyong, the venue for next year’s Winter Olympic GS and Slalom events. Willis finished every race of the Yongpyong Far East Cup tech series in the top 10, and Adam was only slightly behind finishing inside the top 20. After our Asian excursion, it was back to Europe to prepare for the 2017 World Ski Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The Swiss put on an amazing World Champs, the slopes were prepared perfectly and the location was breathtaking. Willis started the World Champs well, finishing the Super-g in 34th. That afternoon we returned to our base in Maishofen, Austria to train and test skis at Hinterreit for five day before heading back to St. Moritz. Because the boys were both top 50 on the start list they go into the main event and didn’t have to do the qualifying race so this gave us a day of GS training two days before the main GS race. We were paired with the French and Austrian GS teams for training, the two strongest GS teams in the world. Hirscher, Leitinger (Gold and Silver 2 days later) and Pinturault, Faivre and Muffat-Jeandet (Adam’s doppelganger) were all training. After the training session was finished, Adam had the 1st and 3rd fastest times of the day and Willis was only a couple of tenths out. ‘Belief’ is a powerful thing, once earned! But training is just that – training! In the GS race Adam finished 31st overall, but in the second run, starting 42nd he had the 28th fastest run and was top 15 in the middle split (very steep), finishing only 1.9 behind winner and World Champion Marcel Hirscher. Two days later in Slalom Willis started bib 65.and at the first split he was 37th and at the 2nd split he was 38th. Unfortunately he crashed at the last roll over, but he could have qualified top 30 and made the flip – in Slalom! And if Adam had skied the first run like his second, he could have qualified top 30 and made the flip in GS!

WSC Kit
St Moritz WSC

This event was the real turning point in the season, or light bulb moment, for both Adam and Willis, although surprisingly not in their preferred events. So even though they didn’t qualify, these series of events over the six days at St. Moritz proved to be highly valuable. Both saw their own potential and what they were both truly capable of achieving! The process of believing in oneself is not easy. Confidence needs to be earned through hard work, tenacity and experience. Embracing the environment and living in the moment, today, now! Competing without fear of failure and only thinking about how to succeed. In this regard, this World Championships was huge, and in my opinion, will be remembered as a key moment in the boy’s careers. Having the All Blacks manager Darren Shand there with us was a real treat. His mental skills knowledge about ‘belief, winning, process and culture’ is inspirational.

Mont Ste-Marie
Mont Ste-Marie
Mont Ste-Marie
Sugarloaf SG
Sugarloaf Nationals

After the World Champs our focus was back on the Continental Cup tour. We originally planned on more Far East Cup races in Japan and eastern Russia at the end of March, but we made the call to go back to North America for the Nor-Am finals and the U.S. Nationals. We knew the Canadian and US World Cup men’s teams would be racing and this would give us minimum penalty races and a better bench mark of where we were at. Willis started the Nor-Am finals with a 4th, 5th and 7th in the speed events and a couple of solid top 20’s in the tech races. Adam started with a 6th, 7th and 11th in the tech races and then 6th and 12th in the Super G.

Time out before Aspen and Vail races

On the 29th March the programme was over but we felt the boys were skiing fantastically well and should seek more opportunities to lower their points. We decided to send them to the FIS Spring Series in Aspen and Vail, Colorado with the help from locals Tim Cafe and the Derwin family, while Oli and I made our way back home. The Aspen series turned out to be the most successful race series ever for the NZ Men’s Teaml! Adam won 3 of the 4 races and Willis was 2nd twice, 4th, 7th and 8th. The end of season internal base points list has now been published – Adam 82 and Willis 88 in the world in Super-g, and in GS, Adam on 9.40 points is #44 in the world and Willis 10.12 is #60. This puts the boys in the same league as the greats of NZ ski-racing, like Simon Wi Rutene.

I feel the success of the season is only the beginning. Both the boys now have goals well beyond what was achieved this winter, which shows me that a vital step has been taken and the belief and path way is there.

February 2017, Europe

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February has been a busy month with racing  World Ski Championships in St Moritz and World Cup in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia.  It has been a mixed bag of results, highs and lows and some very challenging conditions with snow and weather.  A number of races have been cancelled with the lack of snow and the weather has been particularly warm.  The World Ski Champs in St Moritz were a great experience with a large field of high calibre athletes.  The team was based just outside of St Moritz at Hotel Edelweiss, Sils Maria. Our first race was the Super G and the lighting really made things tough! Very fun course though with 5 built up jumps. I was skiing well on the top half but came into a turn offline and lost all my speed.

St Moritz race hill
Fans
In the Start
Super G
On Course
Approaching finish
Adam & Willis

We headed back to our base in Austria for a couple of days training before the GS race on the 17th where I started bib 48 having qualified in top 50.  I was really happy with the second run of GS which put me into 31st.(28th on the run) just need to do that first run now! Lighting got really flat for the second run with snow falling heavily.

Finish Area
Course Inspection, St Moritz
2nd run Inspection
1st run GS
GS
Storm coming 2nd run
Finished 31

We had to qualify for the slalom with a race at Zuoz on the day before the WSC race where I finished 4th, then had to attend prize giving at Kulm Plaza that evening for the top 6 finishers.  A massive crowd who were also gathering for the prize giving of the Women’s slalom followed by bib drawer for the men’s slalom created an amazing atmosphere. The sun came out for the last couple of days in St Moritz and the track was perfect for slalom. Unfortunately I went inside on the steep which wasn’t great, but think the skiing was going well. It’s nice to see how much closer I am than at Beaver Creek World Champs!

Slalom at Zuoz
Prize Giving
Kulm Plaza
Slalom
Start gate
Course maintenance

After St Moritz we had some races at Leogang, Austria and Golte, Slovenia with races cancelled at both due to poor snow conditions.  Super warm some days and raining others meant the snow conditions were difficult so I struggled putting those two runs together again.

Kranjska Gora race hill
Going well
Not so well
Thanks Oli – Work Room
GS Course
Green light after heavy rain
On course

From Golte, we headed to Kranjska Gora, Slovenia for World Cup races in a stacked field.  Bib 65 for GS and 71 slalom with soft wet snow meant the conditions were pretty rough with it raining heavily the night before the slalom race.

Fans in all shapes…
Thanks Cool Hard Hats
Autograph time!
Thanks Oli
with Tanja Frei-Pieren
Live music!

Time now for a day off before we continue on with some FIS races in the region, weather and snow permitting!

Panorama, Canada

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We have arrived in Panorama after some great training on man made snow in Colorado and wrapping up the Copper Mountain race series.  It finally snowed the day before the first race so the first super g of the season had some soft snow to contend with along with some still falling.  The two super g days were good, more of a training tool for me but team mate Willis did well, picking up 3rd. I was happy with my skiing in the gs, just needed to cut out a couple mistakes from day one, then in the second race I got caught in some soft snow and didn’t make it unfortunately. We had cold mornings around -15° C (5° F) but warming for second run. Just one day of training at Vail, however conditions were too lean so took a day off and tried out the Oxygen Bar at the hotel we were staying in before heading north to Panorama, Canada.

Sunset at Dillon
Testing new skis, Copper
Vail
Heading to the Oxy Bar
Oxygen bar, Vail
Oxygen Bar

We are currently in Panorama having arrived a few days ago and have had some good training days.  Super cold after Colorado though, we were greeted with -20º C at Calgary airport when we arrived late evening.

drive-to-panorama

On the road to Panorama

Training at Panorama has also been particularly cold, around -20º C which takes a few more layers to get used to and the feet start to suffer.  Still not the best snow cover here in Panorama either so it is a bit of a mission some training days to get many runs in with the turn-around time being close to half an hour – catching lifts and traversing back around to the training course. Only managed three slalom runs before the course was pulled yesterday.  We have today off so it’s time to do a grocery shop which is approx half hour drive down the road to Invermere, so it’s good idea not to forget anything!  The whole team has been a bit crook with a bad cough which coach picked up a month ago and generously gave out, so hopefully it’s not so bad when races start again in a couple of days.  The NorAm series starts on the 11th Dec with super g followed by a couple of GS and slalom.

panorama

Panorama

Count Down

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skeggsThe end of my Summer approaches rapidly with a final week of strength and conditioning while at home, before flying to Colorado to start on-snow training early November.

Many thanks to the Skeggs Foundation for their continued support as I head away to the northern hemisphere for the next five months, jam-packed with travel and races.  After our first block of training in Colorado we will head to Panorama, Canada for racing.

Training at Remarkables. Photo Cred: Neil Lande

Training at Remarkables. Photo Cred: Neil Lande