Skate America Grand Prix, Reading USA

It was an early start from Torun, picked up at 4.15am by the president of our new club Axel. It was a long 3hr drive over bumpy small roads, so for me no sleep but Stacey was well away. When we hit Warsaw it was heavy traffic too but we had loads of time to make our flight. Flying to Frankfurt first then on to Philadelphia, where we had to wait an hour for the Air France flight with French team and judge on board. Reading was a few hours drive from the airport but was so worn out I slept on the way there and back so didn’t really notice how long. In total it was a 21hr trip, which is tough even when you are just sitting around. We checked in then went straight for accreditation which is normal protocol, but getting your picture card (that’s used every day to identify you) taken after that kind of a trip is always scary! Luckily it was 9pm by the time we got to the rooms we just fell asleep, jet lag didn't really hit us there after that. Previous long trips we‘d arrived, like China at mid day and fall asleep, then our body clocks were off for the whole comp. At 5.30am I woke up, looked at the alarm and thought damn! Japan last year was 3am every morning but its still frustrating, because it only happens until you‘ve skated then you sleep till you want.

We were put into the Paris wing of the Sheraton hotel which was freaky as the next morning we were given our 2nd Grand Prix, the Eric Bompard Trophee in Paris France. We felt bad that Mariusz couldn’t get the free food that the skaters got so we went in search of Starbucks. We got directions from the front desk but took a wrong turn somewhere and it took us over an hour of walking to get 5mins from the hotel. Oh well! First practice went really well, we did basically a full long run through as good as we could do it. It was good because our world ranking points were high and ended up in the top group for the short programme. It was a plus because we didn’t have to draw to see where we skate and in the second group we got a lie in on morning practice.

Short went well, just a few points behind both US team's which is nothing when it comes to a long programme, which was strange as I thought Mark and Amanda's short was way better than it got marked and this was skate America. After a good solid long at Oberstdorf that sealed 6th place for us, we were looking for the same here. But on the practice the morning of the long Stacey came down from throw loop with her blade going straight through her thumb, she didn't realise at first and we were mid run through so she was thinking just try and shake off a nasty fall, then she looked at her finger, saw the bone then blood started pouring out of it!

I didn't know this and she kind of looked at me with sorry eye's as Mariusz was rushing her to first aid. So i tried to do a bit of on ice work while i still had a bit of time, few jumps and spins and then got curious to where Stacey was. I came to first aid and she fainted on the bed, I didn't know I had that effect on her! She came round quick and felt super crappy, she lay for a while worrying more about missing practice than the mess her hand was in. It was held together with glue and guase, she had a big argument with the doctor about needing stitches, he eventually gave in (Stacey is very persuasive) and bandaged her up really well.

So, we slept the whole day trying o shrug off the whole incident, we didn't go all that way to pull out now. We got to the rink for the long in good time as ever, the doctor re-bandaged Stacey's thumb and got on with our warm up. Unfortunately Stacey struggled to hold even basic lasso and just couldn't push on twist and this is just off ice. So we got on the ice not feeling so great but the programme went surprisingly well... Until, the last lift went up and Stacey just couldn't put any pressure on her hand, the lift came down after one rotation like a throw! She didn't fall luckily but we don't get the 6.5+ points for the lift, but we only had step and pair spin left just had to keep our heads, then crash. Stacey pushes back on the 3rd step of the corner to corner sequence right where my blade was going and the momentum we had sent me flying.
We finished and felt pretty deflated from the whole event, looking back now we can say at least we didn't give up. We held our ground and showed British grit, i like to think about this competition when I'm tired in training just to tell my self things could be made alot harder.