Breezy's Blog - Whistler Cup!

SRD places 4 athletes at the 2011 Whistler Cup! Serina Kidd, Sam Morse, Andrew Hancock and Breezy Johnson.

Every year the world comes together for eight K1 and K2 “children’s” races (J3 and J4). Out of these, the U.S. competes in two. In the past it has been Whistler Cup and Topolino but this year the United States attended the Pokal Loka in Slovenia rather than Topolino. This was the third time that I had attended Whistler Cup (the first was when I was a first year J4) and this would be the last.

Though I have competed three times at Whistler, I have never seen a US team bond together as we did this year. Even before the racing started, we formed a rambunctious -- if slightly annoying -- group, generating energy that would continue through the races, allowing us to do our very best. Unlike the boring Europeans, we were quite loud at the start, cheering each other on, which brought us odd looks from our competitors and their coaches.

I firmly believe that it was not any special ability of our racers this year that allowed us to do well. We all worked together in great camaraderie, to make sure that any and all of us were capable of anything. The seven medals from the U.S. team were spread among six athletes from different start positions and all three regions. We took team spirit to a whole new level on the hill and in the village. This ‘anything is possible especially if it’s crazy’ attitude that we developed and shared led to our great results.

I hope that this is something that will continue in the future, for future Whistler athletes and those of us who are moving up to FIS age next year. I know that it takes a lot for these young racers on a new stage to believe in themselves. But as we learned this year with a crazy mindset and some yelling it is possible to win the K2 (J3) overall and place second in the team standings, even without a K1 (J4) team.

.)) Breezy Johnson