Monday, December 5, 2011

Vail - Day 10

Our last day on snow.  Fitting it was another blue bird day but it was our first taste of cold weather.  Perhaps mother nature is preparing us for the Vermont winter that awaits us...or the Vermont winter we are hoping to have.  We finished the camp with another day of SL which included a mix of brushes and tall gates.  We have worked quite a bit on body position the last couple of days and it was nice to see everyone make some improvement in that aspect of their skiing.  I attempted to take some action shots today but failed to some degree.  Usually, I am pretty handy with the still shots but for some reason I ended up with mostly blurry pictures.  I will include the few pictures that were of good quality.  My apologies to those who I did not get a clear shot of, it wont be the last time we take photos though!
Neza
Sophie
Sloane
Linley
Denali
Hayley
As you may remember, we had a synchronized competition our first day.  Today was the final day of the competition as well as the judging and awards ceremony.  Teams were judged by every other team in the competition in four categories: Technique, Synchronization, Creativity, and Improvement (day 1 to the final day).  Each category was worth 5 points each and you were not allowed to judge your own team.  The results were tabulated and awards were given to the top 3 teams.  Winning the bronze medal with 105 points, Courtney Hayden and Alita Rogers.  The silver medal went to Hayley Armbruster and Linley Shaw with 107 points.  The gold medal to the team of Issy James and rookie Jamie Johnson with a new world record of 115.5 points!  Congrats to all competitors and it will be the first of many mini-competitions throughout the year.  There will be a video coming out in the near future of the competition as well as team interviews.

(L to R)Bronze Medalist Team Courtney/Alita, Gold Medalist Team Issy/Jamie, Silver Medalist Team Hayley/Linley

With the conclusion of camp comes time for reflection.  That time will come when we are safely back in VT, too tired to do so tonight!  I will offer a few words for now.  We had an incredible camp with cooperating weather, a group of motivated athletes, and a coaching staff that worked tirelessly to push each athlete everyday.  It was a great way to start off our season and even though we would rather stay here and ski for another week while VT remembers it is in fact winter, I am sure we are all looking forward to getting home!

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