2009-2010 SEASON

The 2009/2010 season was, of course, the Olympic season. My races were planned with the thought that I needed to aquire as many points as possible and in my mind that meant racing the IC circuit completely as those races are worth more points than the AC races. Dependent on where you finish in the race. For the most part it was not a bad decision but unfortunately it is impossible to predict certain things like who will show up at the race. The first two races of the season were on a track I had never been on. It was a calculated risk on my part to do these races as I could have stayed in North America and done the AC races that same week. The risk did not pay off for a couple of reasons: a number of World Cup athletes showed up at the ICC races to 'pad' their points in case they got DQ'd from any of their races and hardly any athletes showed up at the AC races. Hence, had I done the AC races that week I would have more than likely gotten more points for my first two races than I did at the Winterberg ICC races. And this season, more than any other, was an absolute points game leading up to the Olympics as the IOC and the FIBT made qualifications for the Olympics more difficult than qualifying for World Champs in any other given year. For the Olympics there were only 20 spots for women (broken up into 3 spots for the top two nations, two spots for the next four nations and 1 spot for the remaining next ranking six nations)and one needed to be ranked within the top 50 of the world. In the end I finished 2 spots out of going to 'the big show' as the Romanian athlete took the last women's spot. Bittersweet but onwards!

My final rankings were:

Best finishes: