Green and GOLD! Davo's final diary before competition
By Dave Morris Tue, 9 February 2010 @5:54 PM
Davo here!
Hello everyone, I hope you enjoy a little read of my last blog before the Olympics.
I seem to be repeating myself when I say the last 2 weeks have been stressful and a challenge, but every week seems to be the same. This time, the final World Cup of the season, two North American Continental Cup (NorAm) competitions and my hardest skill to add to my bag of tricks.
It is no secret that I was going to attempt a few full-doublefull-fulls (quadruple twisting triple back flip) before the Olympics as this is the only trick that will give me a fair shot at making the finals and a slim chance at a podium if things go my way.
As the end of our training season approached I decided that it was time to throw it down and see if I had the guts to do it. I wanted to compete it in the last World Cup competition to see how I would do under the pressure, so the day before, I went up for my first ones. I’d love to say I totally landed it and it was perfect, but I crashed onto my side which does look awesome on video though. I landed the next one and achieved my final new skill this year.
Unfortunately I did not get the chance to compete the quad in the World Cup, as my first jump, a full-full-full, did not score high enough to land me in the finals, though I was still super happy because I landed it finishing my World Cup season with 100% landings for that skill.
We had a few days off and then back to jumping. I got straight into it and up to the quad twist again trying to figure it out and remember how I did it on water back in the summer. The skill itself is not actually hard, it’s just the fact you’re 15 metres up in the air with solid ground below you, it’s rather difficult to make myself turn and go each time. The weather was heating up, and as the sun rose up so did my motivation, and with 2 back to back competitions on the weekend, I was certainly going to compete my quad twist and make it nice.
The competition consisted of two jumps, so I did my hardest two tricks. The first day I landed the triple twisting triple flip with no issues and put myself into 5th position after first round, with the Swiss and Belarussian teams all fighting for top spots it was a high scoring competition, with World no.1 Anton Kushnir competing along with other top contenders from the World Cup circuit.
As I turned down the hill to launch into the quad twisting triple flip I was determined to make it as big as possible, and it certainly was, suddenly in the time between training and the competition, it all clicked and I landed it scoring 126.99 out of 131. Out of nowhere I could suddenly do it, and even more surprising was me ending up in 1st position! Everyone was happy, I didn’t even care about the gold medal, more that I’d landed both jumps, and come the Olympics my overall score of 242 would actually put me in contention for a podium position if things went my way.
The competition the next day I almost repeated my performance exactly, but missed my full-full-full landing as I fell over the front of my skis, very sad, but an even better quad twist made up for it.
So I’ll admit, I’m feeling really confident now, hopefully not over confident, but I now have the capability to put down some really competitive jumps, and the rest of the field should worry just that little bit more that I’m going to beat them. I have 2 days remaining until I head to Vancouver to get my uniforms and clothes and my room in the Olympic Village. It’s not long until I can marvel at our huge boxing kangaroo flag, and I will have green and gold hair to match.
People have asked me how I feel about the Olympics, what I’m excited about, and all I can think about is walking out into the stadium in the opening ceremony and hearing the roar, I’m sure I’ll be able to hear my friends back home too, to walk in with the best Winter athletes Australia has to offer and to feel the energy surrounding us, that’s what I’m looking forward to, that’s what I’m excited about.
The competition is just another competition, just more people tuned in and more cameras, yes I would love to do well, if I land my jumps I’ll walk away happy despite the result, and personally I just wanted to show everyone that I did it, I made it.
Our whole winter team and especially myself, would love to hear from everyone, we thrive of our supporters and if you would like to write to any of us, you can send it to;
Att: (Insert Athlete Name), Australian Olympic Team
Olympic Village Vancouver
2010 Athletes Way
Vancouver BC V5Y 0A8
Or you can send me a message via the Team HeroMessage site. There is a button on tmy profile page that links straight through.
So watch out for me on the TV, I hope to do you all proud and be sure that I will give it everything I have, though the outcome doesn’t matter, I don’t play to lose.
Davo
