It’s been almost a year that myself and the team were sat in Sweden ready to compete at the Para Biathlon World Championships. With the opening ceremony done and us preparing our kit for the first race the next day, a team meeting was called and we were told we would be leaving Sweden and heading home the next morning due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. We all understood why and it was 100% the right call looking back at it now, but there and then we were all absolutely gutted.
I know the first lockdown (and subsequent ones) have been hard for many. For me it gave me the focus I needed to train without distractions and kick off pre-season with a bang. I knew that we wouldn’t be able to get away on our early season training camps but we were very lucky to still be able to train more than once a day plus travel to safe gyms run by the English Institute of Sport (EIS), where COVID protocols were followed to keep the gyms clean and safe for all elite athletes to train in a secure bubble environment.
“So from April to September that was my life, travel to the gym train, cycle and roller ski around my local area, grab family time where possible week in week out. Repeat, repeat, repeat.”
In September we got the good news that a roller ski camp in Italy was a go, it would be the first time the team had trained together since bugging out of Sweden in March 2020. It was just what we needed back together banter, laughs, bad chat and of course face to face coaching, the team was on a high and the ten days flew by.
After that we managed to squeeze in a few more camps in and around Europe, the coaching staff working hard to get us in and out of countries and also finding snow as we desperately needed snow time.
Germany at the indoor snow tunnel and Sweden twice were the destinations that were chosen. The team as a whole has improved massively with ski technique, shooting, fitness, and just being confident in all different snow conditions. Personally I put this down to the lockdowns, I worked my ass off because there was nothing else to do. I stuck to my training programme but all the other distractions were gone no pub, no family BBQs, no late nights out of the blue boozing with mates, no surprise family visits.
“Don’t get me wrong I can’t wait to see people again soon for now though it’s made me a far better athlete.”
Due to all our competitions being cancelled for this season (2020/2021) I was home for Christmas which was great. Even though we weren’t racing, we had trained hard and it was time for a break (3 days off). Early in the new year (Jan 2021) we got told a few races might be back on in the March so the Coaches got their heads together again and came up with some ideas to give us the best chance of maintaining the gains we’d made. The best option was for the team to head out to America for a month and get some quality training and racing in with the US Para Ski Team as well as the Brazilians who had travelled to America also.
GB Para Snowsports (Nordic) Team in Salt Lake City, February 2021
The first half of the camp was in Bozeman, Montana where we got the feeling of being on snow again at altitude (1700m) and compete in a couple races the US team were putting on. The second half of the camp was a 7hr drive south to Midway, Utah the home of the 2002 Olympic Games (Soldier Hollow) for more training but more importantly racing, 2 biathlon and 2 cross country in the last week.
The first race was the 6km biathlon sprint which was a good one to do to break us in as we hadn’t shot in a race for almost a year. The team did awesome with a 2nd, 4th and 5th place (me).
The next day was the cross country sprint which isn’t usually my favourite event but for some reason I felt massively up for it and I qualified in 10th, sending me into the second semi-final where again I came 4th and giving me a place in the A final.
“I’ve never raced in a semi-final in the sprint, let alone the final so coming 8th (last) in the final was more than I could have ever expected.”
The rest of the team did great also with a 7th in the final with me and the other two guys making it into the B final.
After a training day, the third race was the 12.5km biathlon. For some reason the whole team didn’t go great in this. We all skied well but our shooting let us down. I personally missed 7 out of 20 which is 6 to many to be in the mix but that’s biathlon and I’m always going to have a love hate relationship with it. Results for the team were 3rd, 5th and 6th for me which doesn’t sound bad but it was my skiing that kept us all in there just about.
The last race was the 10km cross country again the team pulled it out the bag and had great results on a slow snowy day which is nice if you want to have a snow ball fight but not great for fast skiing with only your arms. We had a 3rd, 7th and 11th with me coming in 5th which I’m still buzzing about now.
With our trip now coming to an end it’s 3 weeks at home then off to Finland for a World Cup competition and hopefully see more nations racing.
This season has been a crazy one but I’m looking forward to the summer already, to make more gains and hit the 2021/22 season at full speed and hopefully qualify for the Paralympic Games in Beijing March 2022.