The race season was coming to end in Australia. It had been a great season in terms of the amount of snow but sometimes only the tough and focused survived as blizzards and high winds affected the racing at times. The last race of the season in the Snowy Mountains — the Kosciuzsko Tour was to suffer a similar fate.
The traditional 18km course is the highest athletic pursuit in the country. It starts off at the top of the chairlift at Thredbo Alpine Resort and travels to 2060 metres, just 150 metres below the height of Mt Kosciuzsko, our highest peak and ends up following a snow covered Kosciuzsko Road to another alpine resort at Perisher Valley. However such a high exposed course means due to safety concerns that the weather gods have to be in your favour. This year despite plenty of snow, a snowstorm moved in the day before destroying the course and reducing visibility down to 100 metres on race day.
So officials decided to run the race around the Perisher Valley Nordic Trails. The continuing snowfalls had made track conditions somewhat backcountry and passing and avoiding the deep stuff was going to be difficult. Due to time constraints the race was shortened to 7.5km, just one lap and no time for mistakes. Also the traditional age-group interval format was ditched for a mass start.
National team member Chris “Darlo†Darlington warmed up with some ski testing before the race. He decided to go with the skis that former World Cup skier Anthony Evans had given to him. A Nagano Olympics 50km stamp on them attested to their authenticity. These skis are rockets and at the start, “Darlo†quickly double poled and was away with Victorian Masters skier Lindsay Bridgeford trying to keep up. I unfortunately had fallen behind former National women’s champion Camille Melville who does not like to be passed.
Camille took medals at the World Masters Championships in Lillehammer this year and is former placegetter in the World Marathon Cup. She does not expect people to move over for her whilst she is passing and she does not move over for them. Despite a few desperate calls for “track†I knew I would have run the touchline between groomed and the deep to get past her. On that first long hill whilst the pack madly scrambled around her, I fell into the deep stuff twice. As I got to the top of the hill I saw the pack disappearing off into the distance.
But then I found my skis were running well, real well. So good were they that I caught Camille on a long downhill and she is normally fastidious about her skis and is also a good glider. I rounded her on another short steep uphill, which had a wide enough track and took off after third and fourth places. Up ahead I could see Mark Abernathy, a local instructor and a fine skier who annoyingly does little formal training. I had never beaten him in a skate race but this time he was coming back to me!
However as I was behind Camille on another uphill not quite going full throttle I noticed we were still catching Mark and third place John Stoukalo. I thought I could sit and let Camille break the path for me. John was a new teammate and is originally from Vladivostock in Russia. He had got an excellent 31st in the Kangaroo Hoppet the previous weekend but as he reached the top of the course he had been blown up in the heavy conditions and taking it out too fast. Camille and I passed Mark and John at the same time with John slumped on his poles beside the track.
I was gunning for third now as the first two had long since disappeared. I decided to wait to a flat or downhill section so I could use my superior ski speed and a less wide ski stance to get past Camille. Into the last 2km of the course I made my move. I double poled quickly past Camille and tried to V2 up all the slight uphill grades and take any downhill corners quickly and clean. A few more uphills and I glanced behind as I rounded a corner. I couldn’t see Camille but I sensed she was only 20 metres back and Mark was a further 20 metres back from her.
However I was now on the long final downhill at Perisher and if I kept it together I could take a podium finish and victories over Mark and Camille. I could see it up ahead of me in neon lights shining through the grey cloud- third place!
And that’s when it fell apart. Around a few fast corners and pushing to keep ahead of what I thought would be a fast finishing and determined Camille, one of my ski tips dug into some soft snow. I felt it catch as my other ski continued on its downhill path. There was that terrible moment as my head whirled sideways and then hit hard against the snow. On the way down I let out a cry of “ Oh no!â€. I got to my feet and for some reason scratched around the snow for my sunglasses which had fallen off. I thought afterwards why I hadn’t left them behind. The podium was worth more.
I had obviously nipped away from Camille on the downhill. She had not yet passed me as I tried to desperately to regain momentum. Down a long straight and Camille’s greater momentum from the long downhill meant she finally caught me. I was into the last 500 metres with two tricky corners to come. I was going all out in V2 to rebuild my momentum. My ski tip caught the deep snow and I fell over my skis again! Mark went by me as well. This was turning into a nightmare.
I skied hard down the last two corners to try and catch Mark but he stepped around them elegantly whilst with my confidence dented, I gingerly skidded around. My faster skis made up ground on the downhill run to the stadium area but there were two many sharp corners to make a desperate final lunge. I crossed the line just behind Camille and Mark very disappointed. Eventhough I had fought and skied well to get back into the race, it all ended with the same result as many other races before. Things had happened so quickly it was hard to work out why I had trouble on the last downhill and others had not. Maybe it was the pressure of competition. All I knew is that it was the last race of the season and I would have to learn to live with it, as I also knew it would burn within me in the long summer training hours ahead.
