Success...

A solid weekend of racing in St. Gervais has left me with nothing but smiles and confidence just a few days before the British Champs in Meribel. Three races, three finishes, all three results reducing my FIS Points, two PB's in GS and lots & lots of positives. As of last weekend I have lowered my points down to an average of 71 in GS and converted my consistency in slalom training into a race day with another battling finish down a challenging course.

An on-lift selfie - courtesy of Milo

I feel that my short break home after Bormio did me a lot of good and allowed me some much needed rest time both physically and mentally. Now with the batteries fully recharged I’m back out, fully focused on getting the job done on the hill over the final month of the season.

The slalom in St Gervais provided some soft and rutty conditions which made it very difficult to attack from the back. A tight set along the flat and a huge off-set on the steep meant the race was always going to be stacked, making it virtually impossible to make the top 30 flip from bib 101. It was a tough battle but I really wanted to up my race consistency before the British, to finally put together a consistent run of slalom races this year and show a true reflection of what I do, run after run in training. As I crossed the line on the second run to end up 36th overall I thought it was a good performance from a start bib of 101. And whilst the points weren’t great they were enough to shave a couple off what I've already got and I think if I keep producing the same kind of fighting performance I should start to drag my slalom points down next season.

Saturday and Sunday were the type of performances we'd been waiting for all season long. Two runs of solid skiing on both days, scoring my best two results of the season. With the terrain ever changing it constantly made it difficult to know what was going to happen but as long as we continued to take it to the hill throughout the runs and stayed strong Ruslan said we would be in a good position to score.

Again the conditions were a little soft, however my start bib was a lot better in the GS's and I started both days with the opportunity to advance through the field with the intention of gatecrashing the top 30 - something I achieved on on both days. 

On the lift with the BSA boys

Certainly the second run on the Sunday, where I got within 0.5s of the race winner whilst knowing I can still go quicker was one of the highlights of my season so far. All in all, it was a great race meet and it has fueled me with plenty of confidence ahead of the British Champs next week.

Next stop however for the training group is Val Thorens and my final opportunity to score this season, as I will have used up all my allocated first year technical starts by the end of these races. With Meribel also just around the corner it'd also be nice to put down some more good runs in both slalom and GS and hopefully get something really low on the board in advance of next winter.

Below are a couple of videos of my training that I've managed to get up online. However keep a look out for the BSA Junior 2014 season video coming out soon and I'll hopefully get my own end of season video over the next few weeks. There may be a bit of GoPro footage mixed into this one as well!

Finally, best wishes to everyone racing in the British Champs and Scottish races next week. It should be a blast.