GDHL News

For the latest Race Results, Tech Tips, Events and GDHL what's what, be sure to sign up for the News (black button to the right). See you on the hill.

GREAT NEWS!!!

Winter is nearing and so is ski season!

Welcome back! Spring, Summer are behind us, and fall is quickly winding down, bringing way to the best season of the year, SKI SEASON!

Now if you are anything like me, you’ve spent the last seven months, enjoying the sunshine and contemplating how you were going to improve your GDHL results in 2020. And, if you are like me, instead of taking action, you enjoyed many cold beverages lakeside.

Thankfully for those of you who did not focus 100% of their offseason skiing in glacial destinations, bettering their ankle/knee/hip angles, and consciously improving their mental toughness through meditation, there is more GREAT NEWS! Skiing is sport aided by gravity, so those extra lbs you’ve recently acquired will only help your over all speed!

The 2020 GDHL Season

The GDHL Committee will meet soon to plan details of our upcoming race season, and you can find those details and dates here:

Sign up is open for all! Find a list of all training programs and race registration in the usual place on the Craigleith site. If any changes are made to the training programs, new times slots made available, or programs added we will update you in the upcoming newsletters

Similarly, our season schedule will be released soon., and you can find it here. It will also be e-blasted out.

UPCOMING EVENT ALERT:

This Sunday, at Caledon Ski Club, join former Alpine Canada Team Members Larissa Yurkiw, Erin Latimer, and Phil Brown for a fireside chat! Click through here to get your tickets!

Larisa, Erin, Phil.jpg

This should be an amazing event for you and your young super-star skier to attend. All three athletes are well regarded for their exceptional talents, fun and chatty personalities, and how approachable they are.The event is put on in partnership with Skiis & Biikes, and Caledon Ski Club and all proceeds go to The NZ Foundation

FIS NEWS!

The FIS Alpine Ski Season is under way! Last weekend Soelden, Austria hosted the first events of the season for both Men and Women. Both genders had some remarkable results! It was 17 year old, New Zealander, Alice Robinson winning the Women’s race, with Mikaela Shiffrin in a close second, and Tessy Worley third. This was Alice Robinson’s first win on the World Cup Circuit, AND the first win for her nation, New Zealand, EVER.

The men finished Alexis Pinturault, Mathieu Faivre, Zan Kranjec as one, two, three respectively. With Erik Read finishing in 7th as the top Canadian. Trevor Philp finished 26th, and unfortunately, none of the Canadian women qualified for the second run.

Up next is Levi, Finland for both Men’s and Women’s Slalom on November 23rd and  24th.

Retiring…

It was widely stated that 2019 was the year of retirement. A generic statement maybe, but some impressive all-time great skiers hung up their boots including: Lindsey Vonn, Aksel Lund Svindal, Frida Hansdotter, Patrick Kueng, Sandro Viletta, Thomas Fanara, Chiara Costazza, Mathias Hargin and Felix Neureuther.

In September, Marcel Hirscher, arguably the best technical skier of his generation (maybe all time?) announced his retirement. Hirscher’s dominance is easily captured by his credentials here:

  • 138 World Cup Podiums

  • 67 World Cup Wins

  • 7 World Championship Wins

  • 2 Olympic Gold Medals

  • 8 Overall titles (top male skier)

  • 12 Discipline Titles (6 Slalom, 6 GS)

Truly Remarkable!

Farewell Phil!

Now onto one of our homegrown Super Stars, Phil Brown! As you may have noticed above, where you were invited to join “former” national team members, Phil was listed. To read his own words on his retirement, click through here

Phil Brown finished his career with a significant trophy case of his own. He holds two NorAm Cup Overall Titles, and two NorAm Cup Giant Slalom Titles. Phil represents his country as an Olympian at PyeongChang, and Sochi, and at three World Championships. My favorite moment watching Phil race was at the 2015 World Championships in Vail, when he and the Canadian team nearly ran the table in the Dual Slalom team event, finishing in 2nd to the Austrians. An incredible feat!

We are all excited to see Phil around the Club and maybe we’ll tag him for a forerun one day!

Congratulations to an amazing career, Phil!

I couldn’t see Phil off without a couple media pieces. Below are a clips montage from his training in 2012, and a great aerial video shot through drone, by Phil’s team mate Dustin Cook.

And if you need your Marcel fix, here you go!

In other news, AOA has done some restructuring. Next news update will cover this in detail.

Pray for snow!

 

-Doug Jarvis