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Mark Fawcett in the NEWS - Nov.24th


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From the article posted HERE:

Fawcett’s Coaching Gives Back to Snowboarding

By Cory Wolfe, Saskatoon StarPhoenix

November 24, 2009

The event that made Ross Rebagliati famous made his Canadian teammate Mark Fawcett sleepless.

Leading up to snowboarding’s Olympic debut at the 1998 Nagano Games, it was Fawcett, not Rebagliati, who was favoured to capture gold in the giant slalom event. The native of Rothesay, N.B., had won four of eight races he entered that season, and when the Olympic competition began, no one was devouring the Mount Yakebitai course faster than Fawcett.

His first-run split time led the field.

But before Fawcett got to the finish line, his rear binding blew apart and steered his Olympic dream into the fence.

“I slept great the night before the event,” recalls Fawcett, “but I had the worst sleep of my life the night after.”

Rebagliati subsequently won gold, charging from eighth place after the first run. That’s where Canada’s good fortune ended, though. First-run leader Jasey Jay Anderson fell in the second round, and Fawcett finished an inglorious 29th.

“You deal with the cards you’re dealt and I’ve dealt myself some good hands since then,” says Fawcett, who now coaches the Canadian alpine snowboard team. “I’m in a great place.”

Fawcett, 37, will make his fourth Olympic appearance, and second as a coach, this February in Vancouver. His transition from athlete to coach wasn’t seamless, though. After the 2002 season — which included a 17th-place finish at the Salt Lake City Olympics — Fawcett sought a more rustic relationship with snow. He began guiding at a friend’s snowcat skiing operation near Nelson, B.C., and made Baldface Lodge his base for nearly four years. During that time, Fawcett beefed up his guiding credentials and also hosted Sacred Ride, a TV series dedicated to backcountry riding.

Then he got a call from an old friend.

Anderson, who remained active on the World Cup circuit, wanted Fawcett to bring his coaching acumen to the Canadian team.

“He was pretty adamant that I come and help,” Fawcett says of his conversation with Anderson prior to the 2006 Turin Olympics. “He genuinely wanted the help to get things figured out. We knew that, as an athlete, he was as good or better than anyone else on the tour. But it was kind of at a point where he seemed to be slumping.

“We had to figure things out.”

The 34-year-old Anderson has enjoyed a rejuvenation with Fawcett’s guidance.

In addition to winning two World Cup races last season, Anderson captured gold in the parallel giant slalom event at world championships in South Korea.

Younger riders such as Matthew Morison and Michael Lambert have excelled under Fawcett’s tutelage, too. He’s a cerebral coach who loves discussing mental preparation techniques.

Canadian snowboarders have also benefited from having a broader support staff than they did in 1998, when athletes such as Fawcett were largely responsible for their own travel arrangements on tour.

“Now,” he says, “they have very little to worry about other than waking up in the morning, eating properly and warming up properly so that they can rip the **** out of a course.”

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From the article posted HERE:

Fawcett’s Coaching Gives Back to Snowboarding

By Cory Wolfe, Saskatoon StarPhoenix

November 24, 2009

.

Cool guy, last season in Cypress he makes time to stop his busy schedules talking to some of the YVR Carvers about the Olympic and Carving:biggthump

“I slept great the night before the event,” recalls Fawcett, “but I had the worst sleep of my life the night after.”

I'll probably need a board with vist plate whack on my head to be able to sleep:smashfreaMaybe a I cudn't sleep for a month:eek:

before Fawcett got to the finish line, his rear binding blew apart and steered his Olympic dream into the fence.

Curious the manufacture/brand of the binding and what went wrong.

Had similar a few season back where the binding ripped off the insert...

Fawcett hold an interesting deck, is that a raiser/plates?

attachment.php?attachmentid=19070&stc=1&d=1259156476

Cheers

Roy

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Roy,

I think Mark Fawcett's old Sims Burner had an aftermarket riser plate system called a Kildy-flex...

From what I remember about his disastrous Nagano final run, halfway down the race course his Burner just exploded from the behind his back binding all the way to the split in the swallowtail, causing him to veer off and out of the course.

Definitely a bummer...

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I'm almost shure it was Tinkler plate, but different then today's ones - split across, at the midle of the board. There was a big fiasco tread here on Bomber, basically pissing match between Kildy and Tinkler... Speculation is that the failure started from the plate.

I think that I've seen an online vid of that... Anyone has the link?

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Thanks for the info guys...

Roy,

I think Mark Fawcett's old Sims Burner had an aftermarket riser plate system called a Kildy-flex...

Wide SIMS BURNER or just an optic ilusion? Which model, what length?

Cool guy, last season in Cypress he makes time to stop his busy schedules talking to some of the YVR Carvers about the Olympic and Carving

Hey Bro, was it you and Dave*, any chance ask him a favour to ride with YVR Carvers, do kinda carving day in Cypress :rolleyes: ...maybe we can get to the bottom what really happened...naah, duno wan him no sleep...:o

I seem to remember the thread between Tinkler

Ah, Geo u just remind me abot Tinky-177, I think this season I'm ready to ride that beast...when the slope is covered completely

Cheers

Roy

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From Jack Michaud's interview (October 13th, 2000) posted HERE:

BOARD INFO

BOL: Up until now, it seems to me that you've been back and forth between Sims and Prior, is that right?

MF: Actually I was with Sims straight for nine years, and Prior made some of my custom race boards within that period. Last year though, I was only on Prior.

BOL: Were you ever riding a board that was strictly manufactured by Sims?

MF: Absolutely, from the spring of '97 till last fall, I was riding boards that were made by Sims at the Sims factory, engineered by myself and the Sims engineers, who were really good.

OLYMPIC BREAKAGE INFO

BOL: What exactly broke and how?

MF: I had been using a Derby-flex like system that had been fabulous, had lead me to a lot of victories, but then it just ripped out of the board.

BOL: Had you ever experienced that sort of failure before?

MF: Not exactly. But back in the early '90's bindings were produced quite sub-par for how much force we were putting on them and I'd broken just about every part of a binding you can imagine... front foot, back foot, double ejection, you name it. But from about '93 on I haven't had any problems with bindings.

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From Jack Michaud's interview (October 13th, 2000) posted HERE:

BOARD INFO

BOL: Up until now, it seems to me that you've been back and forth between Sims and Prior, is that right?

MF: Actually I was with Sims straight for nine years, and Prior made some of my custom race boards within that period. Last year though, I was only on Prior.

BOL: Were you ever riding a board that was strictly manufactured by Sims?

MF: Absolutely, from the spring of '97 till last fall, I was riding boards that were made by Sims at the Sims factory, engineered by myself and the Sims engineers, who were really good.

OLYMPIC BREAKAGE INFO

BOL: What exactly broke and how?

MF: I had been using a Derby-flex like system that had been fabulous, had lead me to a lot of victories, but then it just ripped out of the board.

BOL: Had you ever experienced that sort of failure before?

MF: Not exactly. But back in the early '90's bindings were produced quite sub-par for how much force we were putting on them and I'd broken just about every part of a binding you can imagine... front foot, back foot, double ejection, you name it. But from about '93 on I haven't had any problems with bindings.

As always DWM with great info, thanks

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Here is the story in an excerpt from an interview done the day after the Nagano Men's GS (interview date 02/09/98) with Steve Jarrett. I think this was published in Snowboard Canada. I cut out the article but there isn't any identifier on the pages.

"Jarrett: Well we're all feeling for you here at the mag. Do you mind giving us a quick snapshot of what actually happened with your equipment failure?

Fawcett: Basically I have a Derby plate and a binding on top of the Derby plate. There were two inserts in the back of the board that I had put in to secure my Derby plate. They were like gnarly heli coils. I've used that board all year and the system all year, and have never had one pull out. But they just yanked out during the race. They failed first. They pulled out and then because of that, and there's only two up front holding it all together, and it just ripped the whole Derby thing apart. It pretty much simultaneously happened. The inserts ripped out and then the whole thing just ripped off the board.

Jarrett: Yeah, that's exactly how it looked on TV.

Fawcett: You can see how it kind of hinged forward like a telemark binding almost.

Jarrett: Was that the plate that you have been working on with Mike Tinkler?

Fawcett: Yes. They worked great you know. I rode afterwards so I could go up and get my stuff from the top. I rode down on a board I had set up there without the plates and took a run on it and it was running like **** in comparison. I feel a great benefit with the plate and I'm still going to use them. And it wasn't the plate that broke, it was the inserts that failed.

Jarrett: What a bummer.

Fawcett: Yeah, it was a bummer. And you can point the finger at a million different reasons. Like, oh it was my fault because of this or Sims' fault because they didn't put the inserts where I wanted them and I had to do that, or it was Tinklers' fault because of this, I mean there's no-one to blame really. If the inserts had been in the right spot it would have been all set, but they kept ****ing up when they were putting the inserts in."

I remember watching as it happened in the TV coverage. It was one of the most disheartening things I have ever seen.

My footnote:

"Helicoil" is a trade name for a thread restoration product sometimes used to repair stripped threads in steel parts. I am guessing the inserts Fawcett was talking about are the type used for particle board cabinetry connections which have a 1/2" lag screw outside thread and a 1/4-20 machine screw interior thread.

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