It wasn’t quite the colour he was after, but Yellow Rock’s Tom Glavas was happy there was a silver lining to the Australian Masters competition at Perisher in the Snowy Mountains last month.
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In difficult conditions, the 79-year-old competed in the slalom and giant slalom – disappointed that bad fog led to the super-G (super giant slalom) event being cancelled. Glavas took home silver in the giant slalom in the 75 years and older section on August 28.
All events involved fierce competition – skiing downhill, between sets of gates, reaching speeds up to 90km/hr.
“I was aiming for gold but I got silver,” the former engineer told the Gazette.
It was a challenging weekend for the veteran after he crashed on the Saturday in the tricky slalom – where the gates are only about 11 metres apart. He had prepared well, doing five runs of the course in pre-training, but hit the third gate and went out of bounds, garnering an immediate disqualification.
“When you are older your reflexes aren’t as fast, you have got to train all the time,” he said. “I fell on my back and it forced my helmet over my eyes.”
The next day, still sore from the fall, he was prepared for a challenge.
“We could only see one red flag at the starting line,” he said. No-one had bettered the state results because of the foggy conditions, but Glavas was happy with his eventual second place.