KT Tape at 2011 National Championships

We are excited to have Isabella Bertold as a KT Tape sponsored athlete. She is currently training to qualify for the Olympics for Team Canada.  She just competed in the National Championships this past weekend and now she's heading to Mexico for the Pan Am Games. Then she's off to training camp in Florida, and then she'll be competing at the World Championships Perth, Australia later this year. Here is her report from Nationals this past weekend: "The entire week leading up to Nationals, in fact, all the way until I set foot on the plane to Halifax from Toronto Airport, all I could think about was how tired I was from all the training I had been doing and how much rather I would be at home in Vancouver recovering for Pan Am Games.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am an athlete, and thus I wanted to win, I just didn’t know if deep down I believed in myself that I could win Nationals. It must have been sometime on the sail out to the race course that I looked around and not only believed that I could win, but knew that I would get on the plane home with the National title. I flew to Halifax fairly last minute and only had one day of training before racing began. Admittedly, if I were to do it again, I would give myself an extra day, I had kind of forgotten the 4 hour time change when booking my flight... oops! Regardless I arrived keen to race and was all ready to go. Perhaps I was a little to keen to race because I started off the event with being disqualified from race number one for being over early, false starting. If you receive this disqualification it is not ideal because it is worth A LOT of points, number of boats on the start list, plus 2. Luckily for me there were another 10 races remaining in the regatta, and with everyone being able to drop their worst finish after 5 races I was not concerned with my ability to win the event. Every race that we sailed I felt more and more confident in my tactics, boat speed, and boat-handling. I went on to win 7 of the following 10 races, comfortably winning the event, and defending my title from last year. Looking back at it now I think it was silly to have had so much doubt in my own ability to perform but this was a great learning opportunity for myself, one I certainly will be able to apply at future events. At the moment I am spending some time training at home, getting over a cold I picked up at Nationals, and looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner this weekend! I head off to the Pan American Games next week and am really looking forward to this multi-sport games event. Not only do I have my sites set on a medal, but I am also looking forward to having one last competition to work on a few things before the World Championships in December. After injuring my knee in October of 2010 I experienced many setbacks in my sailing along with frustrating moments. One of the most frustrating being that the kinesio tape which supported my knee while training and competing would often fall off within minutes of becoming wet. It wasn’t until I tried KT Tape that I experienced the true benefit  while sailing! The KT Tape stays on for multiple days of sailing and thanks to it my knee once again feels stable in the boat! Due to the positive experience with my knee, I have recently expanded my use of KT Tape to include, when needed, my SI joint, and both of my hip-flexors. I simply love KT Tape and all of the bright colors it comes in!" Until next time! Isabella KT Tape Sponsored Athlete