Been spending the last few days totally alone in a beautiful remote valley in Italy surrounded by meters of snow. It’s always weird at first to be in total silence with just your thoughts flying around. This time has given me an opportunity to reflect on all that I am thankful for.
AND let me tell you, there is lots!
Most of you don’t know this, but last March, I got a call from the Canadian ski team saying they most likely will have to cut the women’s speed team program due to lack of funds. For me, this news in a way was a test to see if I still wanted to keep ski racing. The alternative was to fundraise between 200-250k $ to have my own team including technician, coach and all of our expenses for travel and training. I was humbled by the incredible amount of work athletes like @larisayurkiw @ilkastuhec and many others before have had to do to keep racing and follow their dreams.
It was never a question in my mind if I wanted to keep ski racing. I believe I have lots to accomplish still, the love was there and therefore, I started reaching out to people, teams and ex-athletes to help me.
In the current situation with COVID-19, raising that kind of money truly would have been mad.
SO, this brings me to the very very grateful part of this story.
The board members of Alpine Canada and many more people behind the scenes worked miracles to save the women’s speed team that was once again under threat. I am incredibly thankful to all those people for standing up not only for me, but also for all the other women’s speed racers coming up the ladder in Canada. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart ❤️
Secondly, all of us athletes on the Canadian team have had to pay much more significant team fees this season. I’m happy to share that I was able to raise the entirety of my team fees because of amazing people like Daniel Desjardins, Lionel Agoutin, Ghislain/J-P (PiedRéseau Bromont), Fondation de la relève, Tom/ Lindsay Mcconnon, Alain Auclair, Andrew Edgell, Melissa Ong, Claude Gendron, Julie Lemieux, Harry Lacasse, Tim Dattels, Mark Wiseman, Bruce Chapple and all the other board members! (Long list) Thank you, thank you 🙏🏻 ❤️💕