Home for Shoulder Surgery

Taking one for the team…Just two days after dislocating my shoulder in the first World Cup of the season,  I went  up to check-out the course in Flaine (FRA) in order to make a decision on whether to race or not-- based on the size of the features and the risk factor. It was a fairly mellow course, so I opted to chill out and rest-up while the other athletes trained on-course …I would just wing it on race day and try to get one more result before heading home for surgery. The plan was to go up and just run the time-trials to get a few more World Cup points, as this would help with establishing the team as serious contenders for Olympic medals, in hopes of acquiring sufficient funding for next season.  I had a pretty decent run in the time-trials, so we decided I would at least pull out of the start in the quarter-finals . I ended-up having a great run and advancing to the semi-finals. Again, I would just pull out and see what happened. I had some pretty serious pain in my shoulder and my power out of the start gate was all from my left arm. I even did the one-armed poling! I was 2nd going into the first corner and being as tentative as I was with the throbbing shoulder bringing my confidence down (or just smartening me up!), I swung wide and got hung-up in some soft snow and got passed by Karin Huttary. I decided not to hit the jump coming out of the first corner, and just cruised down the rest of the track. As soon as the gate dropped in the small-final, the adrenaline kicked-in and I forgot all about my shoulder until I tried to use it to push…ouch! I let out a bit of a moan and dropped into my tuck. Somehow, I had managed to get out ahead of the other chicks and I led the pack the whole way down, skiing to a 5th-place result.

We have decided that I will get my shoulder all fixed-up now rather than putting it off until springtime. This way I will have all summer to train and I’ll be ready to shred next season. I’ll get a full year of valuable experience before the Olympics.

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