Yea Rosanna!

The countdown is on and I am gearing up for the much-anticipated opportunity of a lifetime: the home Olympics! As if that wasn’t incredible enough, my sister will now be joining me at the Olympics.

Everywhere I go in town people congratulate me on my sister’s recent qualification and the main they ask is “Are you so excited?” or “Are you ready?” Yes, I am very excited. I’m looking forward to racing in the Callaghan Valley with so many people I know out cheering. I’m looking forward to walking in the opening ceremonies. I’m looking forward to my sister and I racing in stadiums that are separated by a mere few hundreds meters of ski trail.

That’s right, my 21-year old little sister Rosanna qualified for the Olympics in biathlon in the recent final trials race. We once dreamed of being “2010 sisters.” Through the past few years of setbacks and more downs than ups we’ve propped each other up and got through it all thanks to our amazing family who’ve been positive and optimistic enough to fill in our doubts whenever we suffered new injuries or medical problems.

Just as family is part of what I call “The Team Behind the Dream,” the amazing people in our hometown of Canmore, Alberta and beyond have played a huge role in getting all us athletes to this point. The preparation and training has been possible thanks to the encouragement and support of so many Canadians… and we athletes don’t tell you enough but we really, really appreciate all that you do for us!

As for Rosanna and I, we will both be doing training camps at Mt. Washington on Vancouver Island in preparation as both our respective teams have chosen that place for the final prep because of it’s similar snow conditions to the Callaghan Valley.

In the meantime training in Canmore where it’s at for me and Rosanna is doing World Cup races in Europe.

**Here are some photos of me cheering for my sister during her trials race. In the second one I actually had to take off my big jacket to be able to run fast enough to keep up with her while yelling “You can do it!! Focus! Ski hard!” In the end if she’d gone 15 seconds slower she wouldn’t have made the Olympic team – every second counts and I was glad to be there to cheer her on.

Thank-you for reading,

Chandra