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What's up

Three weeks after my crash in Vancouver, my arm is getting better every day. The specialists here checked my wrist, upper arm and took out the staples. Last week they took off the cast on my wrist and gave me a brace so I can move my arm better. Britt unfortunately had to undergo knee surgery twice… First both sides meniscus and then an ACL reconstruction. The ACL reconstruction was last week so her knee is still really sore and swollen. Because of all our injuries and motivation in our sport, we were invited on Holland Sport. This TV-show about sports has a little part dedicated to injured athletes so guess where we came in… It was fun to do and we hope we’ll be back on the show next season but not in the injury part. Talking about being back next year... I wanted to show the massive course in Vancouver. You had to ride this course full, to make all the landings of the jumps. It was a nice start with some Wu-tangs and a big drop down to the first bank. The banks were big and you had to double all the rollers because the speed in this course was high. My run was actually really good until my crash on the last jump. I slid through the finish and with that time I still ended in the finals after the first run… The little movie is filmed from the big screen and near the end it goes black. At that moment the power went down on the whole mountain. When I crashed on the last jump, the finish bow was deflating and I just managed to slide under it. With all that happening it was a pretty weird crash.

Bad luck in Vancouver

Vancouver, the city that will host the Olympic Winter Games one year from now. Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities we have been in the world. The city, people and the surroundings are just amaizing. We’re staying in a nice hotel in downtown Vancouver and rented a car. First we made a daytrip to Whistler and we rode the new Peak2Peak gondola, the highest gondola in the world.
The world cup course was long, had big jumps and started out with Wu-tangs. We only had 2 hours of training. Britt who’s riding with a torn meniscus (thanx 2 Bad Gastein) had a worst case scenario. The torn part got stuck in her joint so she couldn’t move until Jorik (our physio) managed to get it out. Bell actually had a pretty nice training.
Qualifying day: Britt’s knee was way to sore to start this extreme course
Bell had a good run until the end…A very big crash and a hell of lot of pain.
Bell was taken to the hospital with a broken upper arm and a broken wrist so far we could tell. In the hospital she got checked out for other injuries and we transferred her to a private practice where a very nice doctor put her arm back together with plates and screws. Now she is back in the hotel and recovering from all the drugs they had to pump into her. But she is already talking about getting better and looking forward to the next season.

Thanx for all the support we are getting, we will keep you informed.

Dutch Championships Laax

After an awesome freeride trip in Klosters it was time for the Dutch Championships in Laax. Britt and Frank would arrive on Tuesday so it was up to Bell to be represent at the beach styled opening party in the Casa Veglia…
Wednesday was still a day of rest for Britt while Bell was charging the half pipe. With a 3 rd place in the FIS contest is was a good day.
The next day is was big air day but after the big crash last year Bell choose not to participate. Frank entered her in the pgs…It was pretty funny, Bell’s first slalom contest. Of course she waxed her board like your suppose to. With no experience and hard boots she came in 3rd! Nice job…only 3 girls competing .
De discipline we wanted to win was up next. Frank (with the help of Laax) did an awesome job shaping a nice little sbx course. For the first time it was actually a sbx course instead of a banked slalom. This resulted in big smiles on everybody’s faces. All the freestyle and slalom riders joined in to race for this Dutch title. With no wind and a blue sky the race started. One qualification run and then finals. Bell qualified first and Britt second. We shared the heat with Anne Fleur (yeah!) and Sonja. Bell won the race and Britt fell and became 4th. The Dutch title changed owner this year but stayed in the family. Now off to the ISPO and on Friday we’re already off to an Olympic test event in Vancouver.

World Championships Korea

For this special occasion (our first World Champs) we invited our mom to see us (don’t know if she really looked) ride for the first time. Also Bibian Mentel and Jan de Ceuster flew in to make our team complete with an assistant coach and physio. Before writing about our experiences there, we want to thank everybody who supported us!
First of all the course looked amaizing! Almost as if the course was cut out of the mountain with a laser. With the crash Britt made in Bad Gastein she couldn’t train the first day but we were pretty hopefull as the knee was improving. The training started out good by stikking the first run quite nice. It only improved over the 2 training days.
Britt sadly didn’t improve enough so that she could start. It sucked but nevertheless she stood on the corner hit(see left) and yelled and coached me. Our mom, now fully understanding our sport wached (or didn’t watch) and brought up the coffie ;)
Qualifying day: the day that I had to ride 2 fast runs to get into the top 16.
My first run wasn’t fast as I made a couple of mistakes and overshot a kicker at the end. My second run had to be way faster. It started off as a really fast run but just before the corner hit, my edge got caught in a hole in the course and I got slammed into the flag… World Champs in 1 sec over and done…
It was sooo disapointing as my riding in training was a lot better and I had the feeling I could get into the top 16. After feeling very bad for quite a (long) while, we had the plessure of singing korean karroke…
The next day, the day of the finals, Bibian was forerunner and she kicked ass!! At least one dutchie riding on the finals day. It even snowed that day.. Normal you think… No way it never snows in Korea. The slopes are all artificial snow, the last time it snowed was 20 years ago. That evening we decided to do a little night riding. So at 21.30 Rutger, Jan, Bibian, Frank and I put on our gear and went out. Two slopes were closed for the slalom competition the next day. One, the real competition slope and one closeby. The one closeby hadn’t been groomed and because it had stayed cold we looked at a powder filled slope….The little kids in us woke up and could not resist the temptation…We kind off missed all the ropes and rode the KOREAN POWDER hahaha It even was pretty deep, movie coming online soon.
Amaizing when you realize that this is a situation that is highly unusual. The next morning our lines were still proudly liying there. If people are still wondering how they came there…dutchies…

Lets forget Bad Gastein

Jep the title is correct, Bad Gastein wasn’t a success. Except for the good course, good organisation and good weather. You would think this is the perfect combo….
World cup 1: both our first runs were ok but not good enough, second run we both crashed. So not even close to the finals that was great disappointment.

Bad Gastein is known for its night finals so at eight the finals started. It was really a cool final to watch with loads of people and a hard and fast course.

Second day, Second world cup. We were glad we could start again for another race, it was time for revenge! But it wasn’t that kind of day. Bell ended up at the 19th place and Britt ended up at the hospital with a knee injury…..

Happy New Year!!!

We wish everybody A Happy New Year, Einen Guten Rutsch, Een Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar, Une Bonne Annee en Feliz Navidad.