Looking to build on good results I'd achieved at the English Championships I found myself back on the road again, heading to the 3 Valleys for the British and Scottish Championships. After a good break from skiing (and a bit too much school!) I couldn't wait to meet up with the Telford lads again and hammer down some courses, so it was probably the best camp of the year for me.
I have a decent track record over the years in these races and was certainly intending to continue this run throughout the six days with some solid racing. In the pre-Championships training week I was feeling pretty good. The foundation work for the season had long been completed so it was a case of mainly focusing on refining the good things and just trying to erase any bad habits. A week in Alpbach was just enough to get things right.
Sunday.
So with confidence high and a solid week on skis under my feet attentions turned to the first race of the Scottish champs. A slalom race down the Courchevel stade is hard enough in normal conditions, however when faced with a mixture of pouring rain, snow and variable visibility the race was taken to a whole new level. Adapting to the conditions would be the tone for most of the week it seemed.
Inevitably visibility was at it's worst the moment I stood in the start gate, however even with fog limiting visibility down to three gates I laid down a really sold first run. It wasn't good enough to lead after run 1 but given the conditions I was pleased to be lying 3rd. As conditions progressively got worse, I went for a second run all or nothing which left me fighting for my life at the bottom half. I survived, crossed the finishing line and managed to find myself in 2nd place overall. A good first day all in all.
Monday.
The GS race in Courchevel has always been my favourite race of the season. How could you not love thrashing down a World Cup piste? Conditions were much better for this with blue skies transforming the mountain scenery. After a decent first run I again found myself in 3rd place with the leaders again well in my sights. The plan was a comprehensive course inspection, practise the turns on a free ski and then attack out of the start. It all went pretty well, the second run was one of the best runs I'd produced this season and got me up to 2nd again. I couldn't really have asked for a better start to the week.
Tuesday.
The British Champs have always been a mixture of ups and downs for me. One year it's great the next it's full of problems. But with confidence soaring and a decent Scottish under my feet I was hoping to build on the previous two days and make this a good championships.
In my early years of children's racing Super G was never been my strongest race. I've always enjoyed it, not least for the speed and adrenaline rush but struggled to convert this into results. This has changed round however in the latter years of my children's racing and I was hoping for good things from the speed event. With weather predicted to deteriorate we went into he opening event of the British Championships unsure if it was a Championship race or training run. Either way it was time to press the accelerator and go flat out.
Whilst not really expecting a podium, I was hoping for good things and stood in the start gate looking for a big run. And what a run it was! The start was great, I kept the errors to a minimum, nailed both the A gates and Panorama bends and finally put together a storming run. The timing board had me more than a second clear and when the last of the top 15 went down I was still 1.01 seconds clear.
However, a few minutes later a yellow flagged re-runner managed to sneak inside my time by 0.10 seconds and snatch the win. Yes, to lose a race that late was painful but I was still over the moon with a good result.
Wednesday.
The following morning's weather proved just good enough to ensure a race could be run and therefore yesterday's race would be recorded as the training run. This, however, has to be the longest day of racing I have ever experienced. Intermittent fog that rose and dropped like a hotel lift made in nearly impossible to run the race and the officials were 3 minutes away from cancelling when the sun finally began to penetrate the cloud. After an hour and twenty minutes of waiting at the start I produced another good Super G run.
There were a couple more errors than on the previous day but it still proved good enough to place me 3rd, albeit frustratingly 0.01s behind 2nd place. I wanted more, I felt that I could win, but given the quality of racers in the event I had to be happy with 2 more podiums in the speed event. Indeed, given I collected the English U16 Super-G title and made a top 10 in my Andorra BCST start, I have to be really happy with my SG efforts this winter.
Thursday.
Onto the slalom. The Meribel slalom has always been my bogey event. In the four previous attempts I have never finished the race. And surprise, I didn't this year either! One basic error ejected me out of the event before I'd really got going and left me frustrated on the side of the hill. Consistency in slalom is something that needs to be out right next season in FIS. In training it's solid, rapid and consistent but I'm not converting enough on race days.
This did allow me however to go and fore-run the under 14's GS race. With the next day's GS scheduled to run down the stade I felt it was a good opportunity to sneak a bit of early practise in. Over the last few years poor snow conditions had meant that none of the current child racers had ever skied GS gates down it so I grabbed the opportunity with both hands to get a feel of what was to come.
Friday.
The final race of the season was here, my final start as a child racer. A GS blast race down the Meribel stade was absolutely the right way to go out. After a mistake riddled first run I somehow managed to find myself 4th but well in touch with the top three. With nothing to lose on the second run I just went death or glory and threw the kitchen sink at it.The top half of run 2 was superb but just as I thought I was giving myself a chance I got badly twisted and had to fight like you wouldn't believe to stay in the course. I survived but with speed scrubbed the chance of advancing onto the podium looked gone until one of the other racers ahead of me crashed and handed me possibly the cheekiest podium of my career. They all count however!
With 5 podiums in 6 days, joint 3rd overall at the British and top performer in Courchevel I was really happy with my week overall. Winning at the British Champs is still yet to happen despite me consistently putting myself in positions to challenge. It will come in time, indeed given the challenges ahead I'd much prefer that to arrive next year.
Onto a long and hard summer. Children's racing was only the beginning.