Road To Sochi
STOP PRESS – JADE AND CAROLINE WIN SILVER IN THE PARALYMPICS
STOP PRESS – Jade and Caroline win SILVER MEDAL
Many of you will know Caroline from racing, training and occasionally coaching at Hemel. She has been selected as a Visually Impaired skier guide to compete at Sochi in the Paralympics with Jade Etherington. Follow them on Twitter @CarolineSkier & @ Raceyjadeski.
Last season she worked in Verbier as an Instructor but chose to specialise as an Adaptive Ski Instructor during her training. This lead to her being asked to give up work to train full time with Jade. They started in the summer and gelled well as a team but had a long way to go in not much time, learning to understand and trust each other like twins. Its not been easy for both of them, with limited time and no financial sponsors they have struggled with planning and finances. But slowly they have got there. And they keep improving, who knows how well they will do by the time they get to Sochi. They have just won Gold in the Visually Impaired category at an IPC (International Paralympic Committee) World Cup Downhill race, an incredible result leading up to the Games. To put this in perspective they were only 3 seconds behind one of the best disabled skiers in the world who is pretty much as good as some of the top FIS racers.
Has anyone ever tried skiing blindfolded in training? For those of you who actually have been brave enough to do a downhill, imagine doing that within 3 seconds of a top FIS racer, now try to imagine doing that with frosted ski goggle lenses following Caroline just a fuzzy blur in front trusting totally in her running commentary.
Please follow and support them on twitter.
Youtube links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfMF-8ZM-aA , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHJAmsInwfo