James Grieves will be heading off to Argentina in January for a two month stay. This is partially to help him overcome his confidence problems with big tracks.
James will join Glasgow's Emiliano Sanchez in Argentina. He will compete in a series of individual meetings. Grieves hopes that the experience will help him overcome his phobia of big tracks. James commented in the Edinburgh Pink talking to David Kinvig:
"I'll be racing 18 matches when I'm there. They are all individual meetings. You only get two or three races a night, two or three times a week. It's not great money but I'm going across for the experience."
"There are 12 tracks in the country. They are all big. The one thing I was disappointed with this year was the way I struggled at places like Exeter and Sheffield. I seem to have fear or confidence block."
Despite problems on a handful of big and fast tracks, James has had a very good season despite niggling injuries.
"I was top of the averages with Peter (Carr) then I crashed and hurt my ribs at Exeter. I then took a tumble at Armadale, and had another fall at Newport. That knocked me back and I slumped a wee bit."
Grieves was relieved to pick up a winners medal after failing narrowly in several other tournaments.
"If we had lost the Cup it would have been a waste of a season. We finished third in the League and might have won it if we had steered clear of injuries."
James has not committed himself for next season but it appears unlikely that he will return to Wolverhampton. He hinted that he would like to be part of a championship winning team in 2000. Grieves has plenty of experience of winning things being part of double winning sides three years out of four in the mid-1990s, collecting Second Division League and Cup medals with Glasgow in 1993 and 1994 and a double in the combined Premier League with Wolverhampton in 1996.
All the signs are that James will be back at Armadale next year although Glasgow are reputedly interested.