The Home Stretch: Olympic Bound

Noelle Pikus-Pace and The World Cup Whirlwind

So, lets recap what just happened. Just to make sure it wasn't a dream. Here it is:

• Calgary World Cup - Gold Medal, piece of tape, hope and dreams dashed in a moment, medal gone.
• Park City World Cup - Gold Medal, no tape, 2 track records, begins attack of the BIG HEADS!
• Lake Placid World Cup 1 - Gold Medal, 2 fastest runs, Mormon missionaries, making headway.
• Lake Placid World Cup 2 - Bronze Medal, crooked groove, 20 forerunners, cancelled run, 1 heat race.
• Christmas Break - Frankfurt, LDS chapel, Mormon missionaries, Christmas markets, peaceful holiday.
• Winterberg World Cup - Silver Medal, 1st heat tie for 1st place, Netherlands, ice skating.
• St. Moritz World Cup - Gold Medal, 2 track records, BIG HEADS return, 2 ft of snow.
• Igls World Cup - Silver Medal, pushers track, 100k Euros gone, Lacee is youngest to do skeleton.
• Konigssee World Cup - Gold Medal, BIG HEADS drop in, green 1 day, snow the next, 1 heat race!

Now, here we sit in our hotel room waiting for Munich tomorrow with Mountain Crane (BIG HEADS) and then off to Sochi for 3 weeks of laying low, and 2 days of Olympics race time. We are looking forward to that flight home and excited to be back in Utah!!!

Keep checking, I'll keep everyone updated with our adventures as often as possible and with any race information that I have. Thanks for the support.

St. Moritz: Victory and the Golden Farewell

-The Toll Bridge-

1st day of sliding Noelle passed through the toll bridge (horseshoe), paid her price (the elbow, see the last post if you are unaware) and claimed the victory. It's like Indian Jones and the quest for the Holy Grail. It wasn't easy but I'm pretty sure she was the only one who made payment.

This is an awesome track! The only natural bobsled track left around. It is constructed new each year. You can view this incredibly AWESOME video on where the track lies and what takes place in the summer time around the track. There are also youtube videos on the construction of the track.

St. Moritz Track Video MUST SEE!!!

St. Moritz Bobsled track construction this year!

Her favorite track in the world and she leaves it behind with a Gold Medal victory and 2 track records! I can't think of a better way to say good-bye. It was an incredible performance and an awesome race to witness. If you didn't see them you can click here to view the races:

St. Moritz Skeleton Race Heat 1

St. Moritz Skeleton Race Heat 2

Attack of the Big Bobble Heads!

Noelle's brother Rob and sponsor Mountain Crane crew dropped in the night before to surprise Noelle with some fans! She didn't know the bobble heads were going to be there, yet they took a huge portion of race footage. Thank you for your visit, it most definitely lightened the mood and stimulated Gold Medal attitude!

Here is Rob & the Mountain Crane Crew: Paul, Courtney, Lon, Jared, Melanie and 4 month old Grace hiding behind the head on the right.

 The Bobble Heads were left here in the round about as we were leaving St. Moritz for good. Not sure how long they will stay there. But Noelle will be remembered thanks to Mountain Crane :)

The Big Heads are taking a break at the Horseshoe curve during the race.

 Noelle Pikus-Pace after the race at the flower ceremony.

 Noelle Pikus-Pace with Shelley Rudman and Lizzy Yarnold.

 Ahhhh. Cute!

 Noelle Pikus-Pace at the awards receiving the Gold Medal in St. Moritz.

 Traycen holding our very successful horn that we got in Winterberg the week prior.

Noelle Pikus-Pace with Lizzy Yarnold (left) and Shelley Rudman (right). Noelle is also holding a glass cup which is a memorial award given to her for some reason that we are still unsure about. I will find out more about the award and update you on it.

 The kids are loved everywhere and were given several stuffed animals from the medics and track crew.

That was fun! I picked up Lacee and told her to lay flat as I chucked her up in the air. Fun things you can do with 2 feet of snow.

 There was quite a bit of snow in case you haven't seen yet.

Lacee and Traycen up at the start looking down at the track on the right.

Lake Placid Skeleton Race Results!!!

Lake Placid Skeleton World Cup Results

About the Lake Placid Track:

Length to finish: 1455 m 

Length to end of track: 1680 m 

Curves: 19 

Maximum G Forces: 5.1 

Maximum Speed: 130 km/h 

Average Grade: 8.6%

The first track was built in 1930 for the 1932 Olympics and remained there in use until about 1980 when they built a new track for the 1980 Olympics. In the late 90's parts of both of those tracks were torn apart to make way for the new track to be complete by 2000 for the Goodwill games.  The old track still remains but is not in use. Lake Placid is the location of the Olympic Training Center and houses hundreds of athletes.

Friday - Women's Skeleton Race #1

Noelle Pikus-Pace finished the race with the 2 fastest runs and claimed the Gold Medal!! Anja Huber of Germany finished 2nd and Lizzy Yarnold of Great Britain finished 3rd.

Sunday - Women's Skeleton Race #2

With a small delay on the bobsled/skeleton track (the groove was sending sleds crooked from the start, they sent down about 20 forerunners (practice sleds) and still couldn't fix the problem). So the race was shortened down to a 1 heat race.  Noelle was having fun and just enjoying her last run down the Lake Placid track. She finished with the 3rd fastest run and claimed the Bronze Medal for that race. Janine Flock of Austria took 2nd (Congratulations to Janine, that was her first podium finish!) and Lizzy Yarnold of Great Britain finished 1st.

Pictures of Our Lake Placid World Cup Week

 Happy Birthday Noelle! 31 years old on Dec 8, there's no turning back now!!!

 Traycen getting a little Luge training in the OTC (Olympic Training Center) gym.

 Our AMAZING hosts (Bob & Karen Peters) and adopted parents let us help cut down and decorate their Christmas tree.

 Lacee holding the Gold Medal flowers after the skeleton race on Friday.

 Traycen wanted the helmet on after the race and wouldn't let me take it off for quite a while.

The kids found some fresh snow and started eating and playing. All during the race, I couldn't get them to come watch, they were busy turning into snowkids!!

And the Last Shall be First!! :)

Park City & Track Records

12 Years of nothing even close to the record. I don't think anyone got within a half a second since then.

Starting #24 (Dead Last) Noelle Pikus-Pace blasted down the track with her supersonic, cold fusion, hybrid tape and set a TRACK RECORD!!! 49.80 from the previous 49.91.

Now starting #20 (Dead Last Again, this time a good thing) Noelle Pikus-Pace blasted down the track with her injection turbo, NASA confounding, self generating TAPE and set another track record of 49.74! Finishing in first place and claiming the Gold Medal!

If you couldn't watch it, IT WAS AWESOME!!! If you weren't there, IT WAS EVEN AWESOMER!!! My voice still hasn't fully recovered. if you completely missed it, SHAME ON YOU!!! :)

Thank you everyone for your support, we had a great time and were ready to keep it going this week in Lake Placid.  Check out some of the awesome pictures from the race below.

Lake Placid Races will be on Friday and Sunday this week.  I'll update that shortly.

Die Hard Noelle Pikus-Pace Fans. (Heads compliments of Mt. Crane)

 Noelle Pikus-Pace with her new and improved load.

 Noelle Pikus-Pace's first track record with her biggest fan in the sunglasses! :)

 Noelle Pikus-Pace celebrating after her track record first run!

 Noelle Pikus-Pace celebrating after her gold medal performance!

 Noelle Pikus-Pace in the winners box!

 Me (Janson Pace) with the kids right after the race.

 Noelle Pikus-Pace with her gold medal! (with Sarah Reid, Lizzy Yarnold, Shelly Rudman, Michelle Steele and Elaina Nikitina)

 Noelle Pikus-Pace on her throne! Where she rightfully belongs!

Me and Noelle after the race!  Happy Moment!

Glory & Unfairness

Gold in Calgary!!

Noelle after rightfully winning the race!

Note the tape under the thumb.

The Case

As many of you may know already Noelle posted the fastest combined time for the World Cup race in Calgary last Friday and was named the winner.  Shortly after, the British team complained about something on Noelle's handle (a  nickle sized piece of tape that is used as a marker for placement of Noelle's hand on her handle, see pic above).  It was put in the minds of the jury that this piece of tape was considered an extra handle, which it clearly is not.  The jury then proceeded with a sled inspection, which consisted of pointing out this piece of tape being an extra handle which is not allowed. Noelle's sled went into a pre-race inspection earlier that week where the sled passed the inspection with this piece of tape and had not been altered.  When the jury asked the sled inspector if this was on the sled, he pronounced that it was not there during the inspection, or he would not have passed the sled off. We assured him that it was indeed there, but had not been noticed. We provided evidence that earlier that day Noelle had slid in training with it present and brought it into sled inspection right after training.
We were denied our argument and instead of using a warning or a fine, they decided to jump straight to disqualification from the race.

Emotions & Integrity

As you can tell we are devistated by this result and false accusation. It has been difficult to deal with having a DSQ next to your name when you know that you are in the right and did nothing wrong. The rules are very very vague and have been interpreted poorly, resulting in Noelle's DSQ. We have worked very hard to maintain a good reputation and have done nobody harm in what we do and what we stand for. It has been a rollercoaster of emotions from anger to peace and back again. Our integrity means much more than trying to sneak a piece of tape on the handle past the jury, there is no real added value by having it there.

Hypothetical

Lets use a hypothetical scenario here and assume that this piece of tape is indeed an extra handle and that it was not present in the inspection. So this would mean that we did break a rule and should pay a price for it. Now, does this piece of tape, which offers no advantage to Noelle as she slides down the track, merit a warning? a fine? or a DSQ?

The Real Penalty

So the real kicker here is receiving "0" points for that race.  That now puts her ranked 63rd in the world and makes it that much more difficult to qualify for the Olympics.  There is definitely an added pressure to do good in every race and allows no room for errors. (For a description on what Noelle must do to qualify for the Olympics click here or click the yellow box "Olympic Qualifications" at the top of the screen.) Here we are again chasing points, just as we did in 2006 after Noelle was hit by the bobsled.

Thank You

Now I want to take a moment and thank everyone for their thoughts, comments, prayers, encouragement and concern on our behalf. We are truly grateful for the support that we have and believe that we can move on and get past this rough moment. We believe that there is a real battle of good and evil taking place on this earth, and we stand strong in our belief that we are on the side fighting for good. We have a great army of help and encouragement to help us every step of the way. So Thank You!!!

US Nationals Skeleton Race 1

AfterRace 1 Update
Race 1 is out of the way and Noelle finished in 1st Place.  She had a good weekend where she could relax and find her mental groove again.

Race #2 Tuesday Morning, Oct 22

• Race is at 6:30 a.m. MST again.
• Noelle is 1st off after The Men Go, order is based on results today. 
• Skeleton Race can be viewed here:

http://www.teamusa.org/~/link.aspx?_id=A4C5A275637C4FD3A1BFF642A2F1E6F4&_z=z

Insider Update
It is not as easy as you would think to be able to go down the track and stay 100% focused the entire time! You can't choose when that focus time is.  They tell you when to go and the clock ticks down letting you know it needs to be game time and everything has to come together in that moment.  This is what make Noelle the best at what she does!  She can focus and knows exactly what to do every inch of the track, even when things go wrong.

Lacee is doing a warm-up with Annie O'Shea.  Returning from last years warm-up bonding :)

Gold in Sochi!!! Pure Amazing

Noelle Pikus-Pace come home with the Gold Medal on the Olympic track in Sochi!

The last World Cup race of the 2012-2013 season took place last night in Sochi, Russia: The Olympic Test Event.  Noelle came from behind by .17 seconds and moved up from 2nd to 1st place by .11 seconds to claim the Gold Medal.

Watch her runs at the following links:

1st Run - Noelle is 3rd off (the beginning of the video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Deflp91gs
2nd Run - Noelle is 2nd to last off (41min 10 sec mark)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAONTms5eCM