An Epic Crash and Race Results

Americas Cup Race 1 and 2
SALT LAKE CITY

The USA Americas cup team kicked off the season with 2 races in park city. This was my first race on a track other than Lake Placid and it was a pretty crazy experience.

Before I begin to talk about the races and the results, I should probably explain a little bit of what happened in training first. All went well for the first few days on the new ice. I had a lot of confidence going into our third day of training; the higher speeds and pressures didn’t seem like a serious obstacle. This is when the track decided to give me a wake up call. Curve six man handled me and gave me a big slap on the wrist for thinking I could own this track. Which turned out to be a giant smack to my head.

Curve six is the fastest curve on the track. Girls reach up to 78mph. This is where I decided to have my first ever crash. I went into curve 6 really late. It’s hard to explain to those who don’t know about curve six why this is bad. Long story short when you go into six as late as I did you’re supposed to emergency steer the crap out of it so you don’t take off an arm on the exit. I basically did the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do and the result was that I hit the exit wall so hard that I flipped. I slid through 2 and a half curves on my back with a 75lb sled on top of me going probably about 60mph…and finally coming to a stop. The scariest part for me was being pinned underneath my sled, and going that fast with that much weight on top of me. Because I was flipped on my back, I was headed head first into curves with no idea where I was going. I had a very nice view of the ceiling however. After 2 curves I pushed my sled off of me and watched it continue the run without me. After I came to a sliding stop I was not upset. I was so angry. I was mad that I wasted one of my few training runs by crashing. I was mad because my sled would probably get damaged. And I was mad at myself for making a rookie mistake and messing up. Most of all I was embarrassed about crashing…I was the only one.

After a truck finally came and picked me up I sort of fell apart. The minuet the medics started asking me what happened I started crying. And as the adrenaline began to wear off EVERYTHING started to hurt. There literally was not an inch of my body that wasn’t screaming at me. My shoes were torn, my speed suit was torn, my mouth guard re-broke, and my helmet was no longer usable. The medics made me promise never to use it again or they would cut the straps.

I was put on oxygen as they asked me questions to see whether I was concussed. I also had some minor bleeding ice burn on my elbow. (The nerves in it still haven’t completely healed because my hand tingles whenever I lean on it.) The medics told me I was concussed and gave a teammate directions to the hospital if my symptoms got worse. I don’t remember telling the medics I felt dizzy or nauseous which is why they said I was concussed. But how am I supposed to feel right after I got my shit rocked? All in all I was JUST FINE. No more symptoms, and if it was a concussion I believe it was very minor. My helmet did its job. RIP.

I took 2 days off and got right back on the ice. There were only 2 days of training left (I think) before the race. Training was fine and there were no casualties. Except for a teammate who also got concussed. But he hit the ceiling not the wall ☺

My first run after the flip was kinda nerve wracking. But there was no way I wasn’t going to slide to get ready for the race. So I just tried to forget it ever happened. Which was really hard to do!!! But it all went well.

(Wed) Race one did not end with the results I was hoping for. I placed 10th over all and had a bit of a scare in 6 again. I hit the wall so hard that I came off my sled again but never touched the ice. I stayed on and just wanted the run to be over. My second run was a lot better! And pulled me into an overall better ranking.

(Thurs) Race 2 went really well but was really frustrating!! I had two beautiful runs that were a total of 4 seconds faster than my runs from the day before. (for skeleton that’s a big difference) My runs were absolutely amazing and I had the fastest push out of everyone! Overall I placed 8th in the second race. Which was frustrating since I did so bad the first day and got 10th, and did so much better the second day, yet I only improved by 2 places. Oh well….

On to the next one. After the races in Salt Lake City we departed for Calgary, Canada! With a whopping 17 hour drive. Lucky we spit it up into 2 days. Unfortunately one of my teammates got food poisoning so she had to endure 7 hours in a car while wanting to vomit. She started feeling better on the drive but 7 hour drives are torturous enough.

Our first race in Calgary is on the 18th!!