So the first two world cups have finally been and gone... The start of the competition season hasn't really gone to plan so far and was a bit upsetting but after overlooking my preseason training and the hurdles I faced (concussion, flu, torn meniscus, knee operation), I guess you can't expect miracles...

The first world cup events were held in San Candido, Italy on the 21 and 22 of December. We had Jacqui Gilbert, a massage therapist from NSWIS come along and help us out which was great. Jacqui has been travelling around Europe on holidays and kindly took the time to do some work with us which was fantastic because we were all in need of some TLC!

The course at San Candido wasn't exactly the best-built course the Ski Cross tour has ever come across but we have definitely had worse! The course was very flat, no real turns, flat, icy landings off jumps and no real technical aspect to it at all.

The morning of qualifying, I had woken with a bad cold so l didn't have much energy and my muscles were reacting really slowly. This didn't help and so in the first comp I didn't qualify fast and also miss-judged the start in the1st round of heats - this tossed me out of the race, first go.

The second comp, again I didn't qualify well. On the second jump down, I hurt my knee by compressing the popliteal muscle which made my qualifying run a little more difficult than it needed to be! I did finish the course but with a lot of hesitation and a bad line.

The Swiss physio made sure my knee was ok to ski on, we strapped it up super tight which made it feel a lot more supported and I was able to compete in the heats. As I was slow in my qualifying, I had the furthest start gate from the first turn 100m down the course. This meant that the only way I was going to get through the first round was to jump the start, which I managed to do perfectly! I came through in second after a pretty good pass on the 1st turn, which put me through to the 1/4 finals. Unfortunately, I tried the same trick again but jumped a little too early and couldn't make it past the others. I ended up placing 13th overall.

After the disappointment of the first day, Matt and I sat down and made some goals to progressively reach over the next few comps. I guess I had been hoping to come straight in to the first event and kick-ass but after looking hard at my southern pre-season winter, we had to re-adjust for some realistic goals. We both know I can be the best out there, but it's going to take some hard work and patience to get myself back to where I need to be. We will take this one day and one comp at a time, so that I am peaking come February.

Words: Jenny Owens
Photos: Jenny Owens

Read Jenny Owens profile HERE

tags: olympic, skier, cross, jenny, owens, problog, san, candido, photo, photos

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