Competition 2/2

Yesterday I finally made it home, and this time I'm staying a bit longer! It feels good to be back home again, I've learned so much the past summer, not only in skiing, but also as a person. I had to organize many things by myself and plan many of my trips. I had to step out of my comfort zone quite some times and also made a fair amount of mistakes, but I know this allows me to grow as a person and gain experience for challenges to come. After such an eventful summer, it is nice to be in the comfort of my own home, however with all the things I've learnt, I know it won't be the same as before this summer. Already after being home for 1 day, I've made plans to fill the coming weeks and started moving my but and get multiple things done.

So, on to what probably was the last

competition of the year. Another 4 round slalom competition, at which I would have a chance to show off my new technique, that I had been training on in Paris. On Friday, I arrived at the competition site. It was important to get a trainings set in this day, because I hadn't skied all week and of course I wanted to feel the water. I had seen this lake before, but I had never skied here before. Other skiers that had tested the lake were enthusiastic, but said you had to pull long and had a lot of time to think, due to the way the water feels. This is good information, but the only thing that really matters is how it feels to you when you ski... so I skied. I ran my first pass, noticing that the water feels different than any lake I'm used to, but definitely not bad. Since it was a training for competition, we shortened the rope and tested the water at 16 meters. I fell at the first ball, but this was just a mistake on my part, and the second try I ran the pass. Onto the all important 14 meter pass, which I want to run so badly in competition. On many attempts I just couldn't seem to get past 1 or 2 bouys. Finally it was officially time to go back, but I was given one more pass. On this I got around 4 bouys and since I didn't fall, I had one more shot on the way back to the dock. That time, I ran the pass, but only barely, so it was good to do before the competition, but didn't give a lot of confidence.

Saturday it was time to see if I could

do the passes I did the day before, but in order. Sadly, I fell too early. For the second time this season, I managed to fall in the first pass, which honestly should never happen. Unlike last time, I didn't miss the end gate, I just fell when I was trying to get round 5 ball. The people there didn't expect me to fall in the firs pass, honestly neither did I, so they didn't pay attention. Due to this I didn't know exactly where the mistake was, but I think an educated guess was turning too fast, since this is what I am  trying to improve on. I was extremely disappointed in this result and for a while I didn't know how to move on. I was very upset that it happened, and on top of that I didn't know why it happened. Furthermore, this didn't indicate great results to come, so I knew almost certainly that I wouldn't be able to get my score up the way I wanted to. Only improving by 1.5 bouys in a season really bothered me and I honestly did expect more. In order to gain some confidence to just go for it again the next round, I had a talk with the national coach. This helped a lot and she also reminded me about the improvements in the other events, and that slalom will follow soon, but maybe not this competition, and that is not the end of the world.

The second round I got past the first pass, due to the fact that I had some time to think, I tried to think about some tips I had been getting the weeks before. I also did this in the 16 meter pass and I cleared that one too. The boat team was great and they told me: it's not finished! I was ready to tackle the 14 meter pass, but unfortunately, too ready. I overturned at 1 ball, so I fell and got a score of 0.5 a bouy. This was sad, because I had a good gate and that was the problem many times before during the whole summer. However 0.5 at 14 was still much better and more motivating than not getting my 18 meter pass. This was closer to the goal and I still had 2 rounds to try and reach my goal; or at least that is what I thought. In the end, I couldn't ski the last round, because in the crash that I made in the third round, I tore my eardrum. To top things off, this crash was not at 13 meters, but at 16, so it was not even worth it. I've torn my eardrum multiple times before, so when it happened, I immediately knew what to check and I knew right then and there that it was over. Initially there is the pain, but maybe worse, the fact that you can't ski until it's closed. Since there is already quite some scar tissue in my eardrum and the fact that the hole is of remarkable size, it will take some time to close. In 3 weeks I have a check up, but until then I have to find a way to deal with the disappointment of not reaching my slalom goal and not

being able to ski in the meantime. Overall, the weekend was very unsuccessful and disappointing, good thing there were some fun people, which made it enjoyable nonetheless...