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Hallat happy with strong start to season

Big Games goals for para-alpine team

With the light at the end of the tunnel drawing ever nearer, Matt Hallat has delivered a strong start to his season and is feeling excited about the way he’s skiing.

“The hard work has paid off. I’m stronger and more solid overall, more consistent day in and day out,” the Canadian Para-Alpine Ski Team veteran said on Jan. 28, while he was back in the corridor after a string of solid races in the opening of the IPC Alpine World Cup season.

When the team sped through races in Austria and Italy in January, Hallat kicked things off with a seventh-place result in the first World Cup race of the season in his specialty, the slalom, which was also just the second World Cup event of the season.

The standing skier, a former Whistler and current Squamish resident, said he knew he was skiing well enough to achieve that level of results or better, but since it was the second race, he was mainly looking to put down solid, consistent runs. That he did, giving an encouraging performance on which he hopes to build.

“I just was able to do what I was doing in training, and transfer over into a race day,” Hallat said.

He said it’s exciting to be able to duplicate the level of performance he’s had in his training on race day. He hasn’t had that consistently happening before in his career, especially not right out of the gate during race season, and it “gives you a lot of confidence.”

A national team member since 2002, Hallat said he thinks this facet of his strong skiing is a result of a combination of his increased strength and experience, as well as work he as done with the team’s sports psychologist on the mental side of his sport over the last few years.

He also kicked off his racing season with super results at NorAm races in Colorado in December, finishing fifth twice and sixth once before capping his five events with a third-place finish on the last day.

After the initial World Cup slalom result in Roll Rinn, Austria, Hallat went on to finish eighth and 10th in the next two slalom races in Abtenau, Austria, boosting his confidence with solid runs under tough conditions to charge him up for the challenges ahead.

In the men’s standing category, Hallat said, the top seven or eight skiers are really strong, and any one could win any given day. In the slalom races, he said, “I’m right in the money,” and in the other disciplines he feels he needs just one more breakthrough to be in that group.

The kind of breakthrough he’s looking for is “down to about two turns of a run, really,” Hallat said. He needs to change what he calls some mediocre turns into really good turns.

“In general I’m excited with where my skiing is at,” Hallat said, adding that he has a bit of time left before he needs to be at his absolute best.

The 2010 Paralympic races in Whistler have been Hallat’s goal for some six or seven years, and the Canadian team has made no secret of its desire to peak for that period.

“It’s been the light at the end of the tunnel for a long time now,” Hallat said.

Feeling a definite comfort from knowing the Whistler hill, and expecting to have a “huge group” of family and friends cheering him on through the first weekend of competition, Hallat has some targets in mind.

“I’m certainly capable of a top five,” he said, having proven he can get close and looking to continue on the same path on which he’s set out. Notching one top-five result is a good goal for him, he said, plus probably two or three top-10 finishes.

Hallat said the goal for the Canadian team, which finished first overall in the last IPC World Cup season, is to win 17 Paralympic medals in Whistler.

“That’s a lot of medals, but we’re on track at the moment,” as long as everyone can stay healthy, Hallat said.

The decorated Canadian squad includes last season’s overall Crystal Globe winners Lauren Woolstencroft of North Vancouver, the dominating women’s standing skier, and visually impaired skier Viviane Forest of Edmonton, who is guided by Whistler’s Lindsay Debou.

Woolstencroft has won six World Cup events since the start of the season, and the Forest-Debou tandem has picked up multiple medals of its own. Visually impaired skier Chris Williamson of Markham, Ont., who races with guide Nick Brush of Panorama, B.C., has captured eight World Cup wins so far this season.

The team has also had strong skiing from B.C.-based members such as Whistler’s Morgan Perrin, women’s standing skiers Karolina Wisniewska of Vancouver and Andrea Dziewior of Nanaimo, Vernon sit-skier Josh Dueck, who has posted a career-best start to his season with two World Cup podium finishes already this year, and Rossland sit-skier Kimberly Joines, who won the Crystal Globe for her super G discipline last season.

“I am really happy with where our team is right now, CPAST head coach Jean-Sébastien Labrie said in a statement after the Sestriere races wrapped up. “We performed way over expectations and it looks really good for the rest of the year. Our program was made so the team could peak in March, and with our training camp coming this February I am really confident that the best has yet to come. We will be ready to dominate in March.”

On Friday (Feb. 12), the day when the Olympic opening ceremony will light up Vancouver, the CPAST group will head to Panorama for a training camp in the continued pursuit of its members’ Games dreams.

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