Carla Pavan

Hello All!
Well, when my mom starts telling me to update, I guess I should get it done!
The winter has been crazy busy. With returning to training, sliding, coaching and travelling with the development team, it hasn’t really felt like a winter ‘off’ of the circuit. It has been positive though: my back is handling increasing loads of training, sliding has been fun and coaching, enjoyable. I just returned from almost 2 weeks of coaching in New York. My goal for the athletes was for them to really push their limits and increase their skills to help prepare themselves for the next round of selections. I think they were very successful
I also spoke at a Calgary school prior to Christmas and taught them all about skeleton in preparation for the World Cup here. Hopefully they enjoyed it!
There is only a month left of ice time in Calgary and already I am noticing the increase of daylight hours. Spring is really just around the corner!
Hope you are all getting out there and enjoying your winter - it will be gone before we know it
Carla

Hello All,
Well the sliding season has begun and the teams have been selected.. without me. I took the summer to try and address my many culminating injuries over the last few seasons. My recovery period extended into this season so I will be taking at least the first half off of racing, return date to be determined depending on the health of my back and push. For now I am continuing to work and am doing some development coaching - a very, very different start to the season and hopefully an opportunity to learn even more about sliding than what I can from my sled.
Hope you are all well.
Talk to you sooner
Carla

Wow. How did I just blink and 6 weeks went by? 6 weeks ago is when I last visited the students of Sunnyside school to talk about my very challenging year and the person and athlete who has emerged on the other side. And told them I would post something on my site - please forgive my tardiness:)
It was great to visit with my students and teachers at Sunnyside and especially memorable to wish good luck to the graduating grade 6’s who have been so dedicated and supportive of my tour for the last couple of years. It is great to see them reach that next step in their lives, off to Junior High and everything that lays ahead of them.
I wish you all the best grade 6. Your strong Sunnyside roots will hold you in good stead while you jump for the STARS!
Carla

January 25, 2010

Stories That Need To Be Told
Don’t know if you had a chance to read freestyle aerialist Ryan Blais’ heartbreaking story of missing the Canadian Olympic team for the second straight Games.

It’s pretty compelling stuff, told with passion and class by Blais, the articulate 30-year-old from Grande Prairie, Alta.

His teammates might use adjectives other than articulate. Once Blais starts talking, there’ really no stopping the guy.

Which brings me to an idea: Why not have athletes such as Blais going around to schools during the Olympics telling kids about their journeys?

Yes, they didn’t make it to the Vancouver Games. But their experiences are so rich and they did what’s most important – they put their hearts and souls into chasing their dreams. Isn’t that what it should be about?

Sure, it’s a little late in the game (or Games) to organize something like this. But what school would turn down such an opportunity? One wonders if the Canadian Olympic Committee could mobilize something like this. It sounds like something that would be up the alley on the innovative CAN Fund, though their resources aren’t so big.

Blais said something very poignant in an interview with the Star on Saturday, the morning after the most gutwrenching night of his life.

“I’m a dreamer,” said Blais, who started a fund to help young athletes. “I always have these fantasies and one of my fantasies is if I went to Vancouver and got on the podium, I would refuse to talk only about me to the media.

“I would remind them ‘You have to remember what amateur athletes put on the line. There’s a lot of people over there that you’re not paying attention to and they’re heartbroken and that’s a story that needs to be told, too.’ I don’t get the chance to do that now.”

He should get that chance. And so should a lot of other athletes. There’s a pretty special group who didn’t make it to the Games this time around, people like aerialist Deidra Dionne, alpine skiers Gen Simard, John Kucera, Kelly VanderBeek, Francois Bourque, Anna Goodman, Larissa Yurkiw, Aleisha Cline and Davey Barr in ski cross, skeleton racer Carla Pavan, hockey players Delaney Collins and Gillian Ferrari, short track speed skater Amanda Overland … I’m missing many others, but you get the idea. You would have a roster of pretty remarkable athletes to inspire kids.

Blais is right. It is a story that needs to be told.

Under beautiful blue sunny skies and the sparkling Alps, I proved to myself and the World that I can still slide with the best of them and am very much still on my game. With a 13th place start position, I had a great first run to come down the track in 4th place. My second run was almost as good and moved me back to 5th by 19/100ths of a second.
It is a great result for me and with one more race to go in Igls, Austria, I am very happy to have that performance in my back pocket.