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Igls & The Hunt For $100k Euros!

Igls or Eagles?  We say it the same.  Noelle has always done well here on this track.  It was her 2nd Gold medal back in the 2004/2005 World Cup season and now with her newly found push we were pulling for a good finish.  She did very well and we were really pleased with her Silver Medal finish!

Triple Trophy

The FIBT initiated the Triple Trophy, starting this year, with a prize of $100k in Euros to the slider/sliders that win Gold in 3 tracks: Konigssee, Igls and Sochi.  Although money has never been the reason Noelle has competed, it somehow seemed to subconsciously add a little pressure.  $100k would have been nice, but with that pressure now gone, she will be able to compete in the next 2 races without the unnecessary pressure of having to win.

I will keep the blog up to date this week.  If you sign up for "Follow by email" on the blog you will be notified as soon as I update the blog with the changes and other important info.

Here is the update for the next 1-1/2 weeks for World Championships in St. Moritz.

Team Race
Sunday, January 27th at 5:35 a.m. MST
Noelle will race in the Team Event.  She has been named to team USA 1.  Here is the current link to watch this event live:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMZtVcyPKpw&feature=g-user-lss

World Championships Women's Skeleton
Thursday, January 31st and Friday, February 1st
I will update the blog with further info toward the end of this week with times and links.

Here are some pics of our week in Igls, Austria:

Noelle Pikus Pace doing a little celebration slide down the hill with her trophy!

The kids on World Cup race day at the track. 

Lacee was making snow angels just about anywhere there was snow; from parking lots to hillsides and here at the bottom of the track. 

 Noelle after her first run.  She finished run 1 in 2nd place behind russia.

 Noelle and the 2 Russians who placed 1st and 3rd.

Here is our little slider.  She loves putting on mommies suit and gear and racing down the hill.  She took first here as we were cheering her on! :) 

 Noelle Pikus Pace holding her 2nd place trophy at the awards ceremony which took place about 4 hours after the race.  They didn't give any medals here only the trophy.

 Here we are after awards.  The kids love playing in the snow.  It is extremely nice when it is cold enough for them to play in the snow without it melting all over them.  This is the 1st race where it has been cold enough for the snow not to melt everywhere.

 

Noelle and the kids getting ready to take their victory slide down the hill at the awards ceremony. 

Once again, our little champion all suited up ready to compete!

The Altenberg Curse is Broken!!!!!

WELCOME BACK TO TEAMPIKUSPACE SKELETON

The Curse:  Noelle has been to Altenberg about 5-6 times.  Her first couple of finishes were 13th and 11th and her last 3 or 4 races here she finished 9th and could not break the 9th place curse.  Her last time here we thought for sure she had it broken.  She completed the first run in 7th place, but right before timer beeped for her to push her helmet fogged up and there was nothing she could do about it.  So she went down one of the most difficult tracks in the world "blind folded" and finished 9th overall.

The Cure:  This time she was bound to break that curse and finish anywhere better than 9th, but we definitely did not expect a podium finish!  Under rainy conditions she pulled it out and moved up from 4th place into 3rd place to claim the bronze!

Noelle has been on the podium on all 3 German tracks this year and she has beaten her Push Record on every track but this one, where she tied it.  Way to go Noelle!!!

Noelle came from behind in 4th place and moved up to claim Bronze to break "The Altenberg Curse"!  It was extremely wet.  The kids fell asleep in the stroller, where I had them covered up and bundled under a rain cover on the stroller.

Lacee made some new friends on the Canadian bobsled team.  You can see in the pic below, she is on the very end talking to Neville.  She also befriended Emily Baadsvik, who painted her nails in this picture above. Lacee went to her room to get her nails done the night before the race.  Emily brought her back 30 min later asleep in her arms with her nails all done.  Thanks Emily.

 The day we arrived lacee climbed onto this snowbank in front of our car and fell through.  It was so warm and rainy there, that by the end of the week this snow bank was down to 10 in tall.

 Noelle doing her sprint workouts in front of our hotel.  Noelle has a new sprint coach and he has built in some workouts that she can do on the go that are helping to maintain and increase her push leading up to World Championships.  Her training has been offset a little with a tweaked back and a strained hamstring.

 Noelle found a few walls on this track.  Something she has not done in a really, really long time.  Even I never hit the wall on my way down this track! :)  The trainer applied some of this tape to help heal the bruise.

 The top 6 on the podium with their "cream sodas".  There is always some lucky person around that gets a large free drink.  For some reason 2 of the 3 German tracks are sponsored largely by beer companies.  They also give out a large 1 gallon drum.  Crazy people!