Olympia Semis

So it was the time for the Olympia semi finals being held up at Stoneleigh, but rather than being in the ABC finals this year, Kiah and I had made it to the 6-7 instead, so proud of her but incredibly nervous being up against a lot of the top handlers in the country.  All of the finals were being set and judged by Arthur Rodgers, they were fantastic courses, perfectly set for the grades, tricky, lots of clever areas for mistakes, but plenty of room for handling and lots of exciting parts to enable power and speed, very enjoyable.

My warm up running order was number 20 so roughly in the middle of the pack which was fine, though I'm not sure whether it was good luck or really bad that I ended up with running order one in the semi final, typical!!  I think I controlled my nerves reasonably well (for me!) and after walking the course, I stayed calm and Kiah was good too, we had no poles down at all, working together and listening, and just an unlucky refusal, with a finish time that was up there with the others, so I was really pleased, and positive going into the final.

Walking the final course I really enjoyed the look of it, I must have walked it about 6 or 7 times just so that I made sure I had the hang of it, and I think at this point it was more than likely better that I had running order one, as I didn't have time to worry or stress!! Kiah was fantastic with my handling, just a couple of unfortunates - I had a couple of areas where I hesitated which was just a silly mistake by me, firstly which resulted in a pole down, and then another pole down a few obstacles later, when I called her too soon and I didnt need to.  Such a shame as again we had a time that wouldn't have been discarded.

There was so much positivity to take out of these two runs, I was so so pleased, and as much as I was a tiny bit disappointed in the poles coming down, Kiah's contacts were brilliant, and her turns, and her weaves and the entry too, and the go round, and driving to the tunnels, and taking off at the end to power to the finish line, clever Kiah bear!!  Good luck to everyone that is off to Olympia, I just hope we can qualify again, the nerves and adrenalin is exciting - would love to give it another go!!