Sunday 5 February 2012

Jan Hudec's World Cup Win

30 year old Jan Hudec, of Calgary, won the world cup downhill for alpine skiing in Chamonix, France on February 5th. Along with Hudec on the top of the podium, fellow Canadian Erik Guay placed third, and Ben Thompson of Invermere finished fifth, after starting 50th. Some may just see this as a regular win for Hudec, but when they read deeper, its a touching tale.
Hudec has been battling through bad knee and back injuries through his whole career, and the win for him must've been enormous. It's his first win in five years! At the beginning of the year, Hudec was told by Alpine Canada that he was too old, had a bad injury history, and was putting up good enough results in order to be sponsored by them. Hudec held many fundraisers and searched for other sponsors as he had to pay for himself on his ay through world cup circuits. Hudec was born in the Czech Republic (at the time Czechoslovakia), and immigrated with his family in the late 80's. This is a truly inspiring story and I hope he gets the media coverage he deserves. The ski racing community is loving this story, and I even saw it written up on ESPN. Another impressive fact is that Canada had 3 skiers in the top 5, which hasn't happened since 1982! As my former ski coach once said "I want 4 of you in the top 3, and I don't care who ties." They did not achieve that, but an amazing day! What a result for the Canadians! Congrats!

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