My journey from here to there: My Experience at World Juniors as A Forerunner.

So probably one of the coolest experiences / opportunities is happening this week! I am an official forerunner for the World Junior Ski Championships at Le Massif and Mont Ste Anne this week. We started off the week with the first two days of Downhill (DH) training being cancelled, due to excessive amounts of snow and wind at Le Massif. On our two days off we went up to Mont Ste Anne to try and get some training in on the north side. Needless to say that since we couldn't race cause of all the snow, training would be very soft and possibly impossible. We got about three runs in on our first day in Ste Anne, but unfortunately no gates.

First day view out the window doesn't give much justice but we got close to a meter in 2 days

Bubble Chair at MSA for some Powder Skiing!

Our second day we went up and it was slightly better the powder on the runs was dry and soft so it made skiing really fun, but when we got in the Slalom (SL) gates we got 2 runs in and then called it quits because of how soft the conditions where. On the other hand they where able to pull the women's SL off the second day. The conditions on the SL run where perfect (on the track) but off the track you had no chance. Slipping down their course there where probably 30 volunteers going gate to gate raking and shoveling the snow off the track! With out the volunteers there is no way they were pulling off that race.

My Camera Set up for TV

Finally on the third day, so yesterday, we where able to do the first run of training for the downhill (the only run of training). Ive gotten the honor of having bib F1, aka "the most expendable." Also during this day I was given the honor to be the personal camera mount for Radio-Canada. They attached 4 go pros to me one on my head, one on my back, one on my fore arm, and one on my ski. Unfortunately the one on my ski came off before i was even out of the start. Now that i've been decked out with about 1500$ in cameras on my body, and finished my pre run interview, it was time for my run.

Drop into the wall

Bank Turn 2 minus 2 gates until the wall

... Enough Said

First things first, if you ever say or wonder why they have forerunners, well I can personally say because of us there was a training run yesterday. So I'm standing in the start of my first DH run in 2 years on what is to be the gnarliest downhill I've ever done, and to be honest I was nervous maybe even a little scared. The start clock ticks down, 10 seconds... 5...4...3...2....1 and I'm off. right away all fears where gone I knew if i was scared the whole way I wouldn't make it down in one piece. How ever my skiing was cautious I was slightly in a defensive position but that's where I felt comfortable for my first run in 2 years. I get threw the top flats and threw bank turn, and I'm now 2 gates away from dropping into the pitch I was confident with my inspection and my approach to the course thus far, so I was totally nervous coming over the pitch. I will admit I didn't take enough direction over the pitch but that was least of my worry's at this point. I came over and the set was really straight and way to fast to enter the pitch and I flew no word of a lie flew. Remember those dreams where your falling and you wake up all of a sudden, yeah? well that's what it felt like while I was in the air, and I couldn't wake up it was do or die. The most common distance that people where estimating my flight to be was around 35-40m before hitting ground and just avoiding going into the next gate.

A Little fogged in but meh what ever its only DH

All that fear that I had gotten over... It was all back and my heart was pumping like you couldn't believe. The next two gates I stood up and checked to make sure everything was good and my pants where clean. Unfortunately I lost the helmet Go Pro on this semi crash so any footage after that was not going to happen. I made it down the rest of the way and came threw the finish line with a huge sigh of relief, I made it. F2 how ever didn't, he had done the same thing as me over the pitch but his tails slid out in front of him on landing and he went down. After the 2 of us had gone over and our hearts nearly came out of our chests they changed the gates at the entrance of the pitch and it was running smooth after that!

From what I've been hearing today was that if they did not change the gates up top after me and F2 came flying down that pitch there where coaches who where going to pull their athletes from the race because of how dangerous it was. So yeah thank god for forerunners.

First ever triple black! It was fun

Nice View

Today was DH race day I was F1 again apparently if you don't die the first time they keep sending you F1 until you do.. not actually tho! I was nervous again today after the events of yesterday so I skied very conservatively over the pitch and didn't take any chances, and minus the bumpy track everything ran smooth.