Kennedy-Sim and Grimus on track after Val Thorens

SKI CROSS: Australia’s Ski Cross duo, Sami Kennedy-Sim and Anton Grimus have ranked 11th and 20th respectively following the first day of the FIS World Cup Cross Alps Tour in Val Thorens, France.

After narrowly missing out on progressing through to the semi-finals and placing third in her quarterfinal, Kennedy-Sim said the start to the season hadn’t been “necessarily great but it’s definitely not a detriment either”.

“The best training for racing is racing, you can’t reproduce the atmosphere or the stress without going to a race,” she said.

“Unfortunately for some reason I had an absolute muck up and thought that I was somewhere else in the course and made a mistake that cost me going through and I almost pulled it back but not quite.

“I’ll take a top 12 and enjoy a day off tomorrow and rest my knee and hopefully get to race on Saturday.”

While training on the course on Wednesday afternoon, Kennedy-Sim had a “little training crash”.

“I kind of was just playing it all by ear and taking every sound as they came,” she said.

“Obviously the first round of that is going skiing in the morning and I felt OK skiing so I started training, training was smooth.

“It wasn’t really painful outside of the start features and a technical part in the bottom of the course.”

Grimus was at the front of the pack in his eighth final after a powerful start but ended up placing third after running “a bit wide”. Nevertheless, the Sochi Olympian said that he gave it his all “and made a pretty good effort of it”.

“Out of the start I gave it to them,” he said.

“I was right out there and I’ve been working on my starts a lot because in the past it’s something that I’ve lacked in and I got the start down.

“And then my speed kicked in which I’ve always had and I was out in front and tried to defend and had to run a different line to what I was used to so on the first negative I ran a bit wide which allowed the other guys to get in, so I was in second.”

The 26-year-old added that fellow competitor, Frenchman Jean Frederic Chapuis -- whom the course in Val Thorens is named after -- “skied brilliantly” during their race.

“He went out wide and went from third to first and showed us how it’s done,” he said.

“You know, it’s a positive day all in all, I’ve done some quick skiing and I’ve got the speed, my starts are quick so it’s just another step in the right direction building my confidence.”

At the end of the day, confidence is what is most important heading into a race – indeed it’s “what separates the top guys”, according to Grimus.

Kennedy-Sim and Grimus have a busy next couple of weeks as the World Cup Cross Alps Tour moves on to Arosa, Switzerland for a night time sprint event which is then followed by races in Montafon, Austria.

The Tour then concludes in Innichen, Italy on December 22 with a back-to-back two-race finale.

With Friday’s races being brought forward to Thursday due to the threat of an incoming winter storm, the pair will compete again in Val Thorens on Saturday.

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David Barden
OWIA