When it's been two-and-a-half years since your last World Cup medal and top-10 appearances are fewer and further between than you'd like, it can be difficult to remain positive.
But for Jane Channell, it was all part of the long game, and she's feeling jubilant and confident after hitting her first high-level skeleton podium since 2017 at the IBSF World Championships in Altenberg, Germany, on March 1.
Channell, a North Vancouver product whose home track is the Whistler Sliding Centre, teamed up with fellow Canuck Dave Greszczyszyn to take silver in the mixed team competition, just 0.01 seconds away from the golden time of Germans Jacqueline Loelling and Alexander Gassner. Italians Valentina Margaglio and Mattia Gaspari ended up in third. The other Canadian team, Mirela Rahneva and Kevin Boyer, was 10th.
In the mixed contest, Channell posted the fastest women's time by 0.12 seconds, easily besting all four of her runs in the women's race held on Feb. 28 and 29.
"It feels really good to be able to feel like I belong here on the World Cup. It's been a long time since I felt that," Channell told Pique from Germany on March 1. "That first run [of the women's race], coming down in third place was a real confidence booster. Everyone else-coaches, friends and family-all knew I could do it, but it was a matter of me knowing I could do it.
"It was after that, for sure, where I knew I could do it."
After catching a bad cold before training, Channell nearly decided to forgo the practice runs, but battled through, finding the payoff on her competition days. She also felt that the Altenberg locale was favourable, as the track is technical enough to require strong gliding and driving skills.
"To be able to be healthy and have some personal best push times and some personal-best downtimes was amazing. For me, it was just focusing on what I could do and not worry about the other variables that were out there," she said. "It was a mental challenge, but it was a really, really solid World Championships for me considering how the season had gone."
In the team event, Channell was proud to race alongside veteran Greszczyszyn, who competed on the Intercontinental Cup circuit this year, but did well enough to qualify for World Championships and was invited out to Germany.
"It was a ton of fun having him out this week and it was a pleasure racing with him in the team event. He's always a good teammate to have around," she said.
Channell felt her only poor run of the week was her second of four runs in the women's contest, as she came down in 17th, kneecapping her medal contention as she eventually placed eighth. Channell started out and finished well, with a third-place run the first time down and a fourth-place run to cap it off.
"I was going into today as though this was the re-do for my Run 2 in the women's race. I wanted to redeem myself and knew I left a lot of time on the track in that second run," she said. "I definitely feel like that's the run that should have been Run 2.
"For it to all come together right now is huge."
What's particularly gratifying for Channell is that she finally saw the fruits of her labour after dealing with equipment changes this year. She explained that throughout her career, she's pingponged between various sleds, switching back to a Bromley sled-on which she's had her best results, including a third-place overall finish in the 2015-16 season-for 2019-20.
"It was re-learning it and re-trusting it and everything else that comes along with the equipment. Everything was trending in the right direction all season even though the results weren't there, but I was learning a ton and learning to trust the sled, essentially," she said, explaining that her driving lines were generally good, but her results were hindered by the learning process.
Channell started her career on a Dukurs sled as her coach at the time, Ivo Pakalns, was most familiar with it. When the Bromley X18 came out, she switched to that to test it out for two years. Because of a partnership the Canadian team had with the Latvians, she went back to the Dukurs sled for easy access to the sledmakers, but with Charles Wlodarczak taking over as national coach after the 2018 Winter Olympics, his familiarity with the Bromley made it sensible to bounce back again for this season.
"I knew this year was going to be a big learning year. With the coaching staff that we have, it just makes sense to move back," she said. "The thing is, you have to be willing to try something new, because if you don't, then you never know if the equipment that you're on is right for you.
"It was a risk, for sure, but it was a risk I knew I needed to take."
Channell said she felt she clicked in St. Moritz and she made major strides in the final World Cup race in Sigulda, where the only impediment were mistakes made by Channell, not anything to do with the sled itself.
After being on the road since Dec. 28, Channell now has some time off before Provincial Championships from March 20 to 22 and Canadian Championships on March 28, both at Whistler Sliding Centre.
In the second and final week of World Championships, the only other Canadian in the women's race was Rahneva, who placed 16th, while German Tina Hermann topped Switzerland's Marina Gilardoni and Austria's Janine Flock for gold.
In the men's race, Greszczyszyn was the top Canadian in 23rd, while Boyer placed 25th. The podium was a German sweep, as Christopher Grotheer won gold over Axel Jungk and Gassner.
The final event was the four-man bobsleigh contest, but Canada's sled of Justin Kripps, Benjamin Coakwell, Cameron Stones and Ryan Sommer pulled out at the midpoint after pilot Kripps suffered a torn hamstring. The team posted the fourth-best time in both runs and was well in medal contention at the time of Kripps' injury.
In another German sweep, Francesco Friedrich piloted his sled to gold over Johannes Lochner and Nico Walther.
Complete results are available at www.ibsf.org.
