We went to our first trial since Worlds last weekend. I have to say I was a bit taken aback at how a few people reacted to me. One person in particular had me scratching my head.
She grabbed my forearm, leaned in to look directly into my eyes and said, "I'm so sorry you didn't do better in Austria."
How do I respond to that? I thought that we did pretty damn well our first year at worlds. On our first ever run we finished in 5th place overall. On our final run we had the 3rd fastest time (with the minor annoyance of a teeter flyoff call). I think it shows that we are pretty competitive. We just need a little more international experience...
Anyway, I told her I was happy with how we did and almost took my friggen Supporter Pin back. That's not the kind of support I need.
It wasn't until later that I realized that on official records Icon's Team Jumpers score was given to Zippity while he received her disqualification score (due to a bib mix-up on the first run). So I guess someone going by official results would just see 3 Disk and one run with 5 faults. Looking at it that way we must have had a crappy time at worlds.
Aside from that the trial was pretty fun. As always Polly was Practically Perfect in every way. He qualified in every run except pairs where his partner went off course so I didn't bother running the 2nd half with Apollo. But I'm considering that a 'virtual Q' since we ran as an accommodating pair with Katrina and Maddie and we finished 2nd. Apollo got every single contact last weekend aside from his first a-frame in gamblers. I'd love to say the re-train of our running contacts is a resounding success but I think the closest I can come is to say we have some pretty nice handled contacts since I slowed down to help him with each one.
Icon had a good Saturday and qualified in everything but his allergies were acting up and his poor feet were quite sore. We started out strong on Sunday morning, winning SC, but in GP he went "SPLAT" on the up side of the a-frame. On his way up the a-frame he had scraped his foot and it was bleeding so I scratched him from the last 3 runs and we headed home early.
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haaa, oh people, I really do not think they mean any harm by their statements, but sheesh. Just for the record, Freddie and I think you two looked amazing. We would like to look half as good as you and Icon out there!
ReplyDeleteYou guys rocked it and certainly SHOULD have been there. We are hoping to see you two in Germany next year too.
I watched every minute of the large dog team and individual runs and I thought that both you and Denise had really fabulous runs that you should be really proud of.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed being able to watch all of the runs on VOD because if you've never been to WC it's hard to get a sense of what the event is like.
But, of course, watching all of the runs only shows part of the picture. Not even 8+ hours of VOD could display all of the time, effort and stress that goes into competing at the WC.
People often unintentiounally say things that do more harm than good but try not to stick anyone with a supporter pin :)
Only 12 teams get to go to the WC each year. The overwhelming majority of competitors here don't know - cannot know - what's really involved or what reasonable measures of success should be.
I think that sharing that you were happy with your runs is a perfect response.
Many people define success in terms of 'wins'. But, one of the things that I've noticed is that the people 'at the top' usually see things differently...they know that success is in preparing well, doing your best and always trying to be better.
You can do a great service to the sport and the dogs by sharing that perspective with others who may be a bit too focused on the wrong things.
Good luck next year! L
I have to agree with what Lisa wrote. gosh darn it, it is not all about the winning but more in how well you play the sport, have a great relationship with your partner, display good sportsmanship even when things don't always go right, etc. You always look wonderful as does Icon even on the rare occasion that your run is faulted. Sometimes people just don't have too much smarts in what comes out of their mouth:>) And as Tammy Moody said, "You guys rocked!"
ReplyDeletePeople are weird. I thought you and Icon did awesome and I'm looking forward to watching you at Worlds again next year! :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks guys! I didn't mean to sound so whiny!
ReplyDeleteBut in my new post about my plumbing woes I DO mean to sound whiny :)