A dose of flu and another one of bad luck conspired to rob Joh Shaw of a good result in the Sunday River parallel giant slalom World Cup this week.

Shaw rode to sixth place in the opening round of qualifying, but then was forced to stop her second run by an errant course worker.

“I had been sick for three days with a cold and (on race day) I woke up and felt terrible, but decided to put the sickness behind me and race as best as I could,” Shaw said.

“My first run was really good, sixth on my course, and I was happy with that.”

On the second run I put all my energy together to have a great run and I was beating my opponent (but) one of the course workers was slipping on my course and I had to stop as she was in my way.”

“I was able to get a re-run, (but) I had to race by myself and that is very difficult as I had no one to compare with and I was giving all I had and I got half way down the course and crashed.”

“I’m very upset about the result, but have gained more experience for next season and I still know I'm fast even when I'm sick.”

Sunday River was also not a good event for Alex Pullin, the AIS rider crashing in training, then being pulled out of the second run of snowboard cross qualification as a precaution by AIS/OWI Head Snowboard Coach Ben Wordsworth.

Damon Hayler, still feeling the effects of a shoulder injury sustained in Cypress Mountain in February, opted not to compete.