Back to Base

After nearly a week in Les Crosets for the Welsh Alpine Champs, it was back to our base in Aosta late on Saturday.
Sunday saw a days rest for both athletes and coaches with today being business as usual on the hill in Pila.

Getting up this morning, it was cloudy at our place and in the valley but, as we headed up in the gondola for a days slalom freeskiing, we moved above the clouds to a very cold but clear day.
We've had some new snow over the last day or so which has refreshed the pistes and, with the cold temperatures, we had great conditions for training today.

With the cloud moving up the hill and more snow coming in just after lunch, we headed down. It's snowing lightly now at our base at 1250m, so hopefully there'll be some more up at Pila.

Meanwhile, we still have coaches working with the group of Aussie servicemen and women racing at the Combined services in Meribel and with Lambrook and Halliford schools competing at the schoolboys races in Meiringen. Further info and reports on these events in the next few days.

Mixed fortunes in a week of racing

This week has been pretty busy starting with two races at home in PILA on Saturday and Sunday.

The Slalom on Saturday saw some good skiing but none of our guys able to make both runs. That, unfortunately, is ski racing.

Cormac during course inspection for the slalom in Pila

Sunday saw a better day in the GS with both Cormac and Jack getting their best FIS points scores for that discipline.

We then headed over to Champery/Les Crosets for the Welsh Alpine Champs. With a great days slalom training on Monday, we then had the FIS GS race on Tuesday. Unfortunately, with a big delay for timing issues, we lost the second run for the boys as the TD believed that the light wasn't sufficient. This was very disappointing as several coaches believed that the light was good enough to run the boys down the second run.

The FIS Slalom was a better event but, again, our boys failed to finish! So we got our FIS racers to take some experience from forerunning the BASS races on Thursday (Sl) and today (GS). This gave them valuable experience in a race scenario which, hopefully, will help with our next races.

Les Crosets a couple of days ago

It's now back to base in Aosta for training whilst Finlay heads off to Meiringen for the Schoolboys races where Harri will be coaching Halliford School and Lambrook school teams.

Meanwhile, the Australian Defence team did well in Tignes at the RN champs with several podiums for both the men and women, including two golds for one of the male racers, Dan. They are currently training in Meribel ahead of the combined services champs next week.

Aussies, Jamaicans, Irish and some Brit trainees!!

This is a long overdue update, mainly due to a very busy start to the season with huge snowfalls, broken vehicles, delayed opening of resorts etc.

View from the top of Pila today with Mont Blanc on the left and the Matterhorn on the right

The first two weeks of the season, up to and including BARSC, were absolutely hectic, with huge snowfalls (leading to some amazing powder days), one of our vehicles breaking down (now sorted) and almost being snowed into our accommodation.
The BARSC champs saw us pick up several podiums with Max Wheatman, Alex Fitzpatrick, Ed Fenton-Fowler and Two of our Irish Contingent, Erin Flynn and Emily Ainsworth and our Jamaican representative, Chelcie Bird.

The Anglo Scottish races saw one of our Children, Finlay Davies pick up 2nd place in the GS.

The bottom of our road a couple of weeks ago

Sometimes it can go a bit wrong in the powder!

This last two weeks saw us hosting training for the Australian Defence Alpine Snowsports Association. A group of 20 Aussie servicemen and women over here for 5 weeks, including the Royal Navy and Combined Services Champs. A great two weeks was had by this group, working with ski coach Brian Byrne and Boarding coach Donnie Macleod. Donnie has taken weeks out of his own Business in Davos - Synergy Snowsports. They've now gone on to race in Tignes, then Meribel, so good luck to those guys.

Some of the Aussie Defence Team with coaches Donnie and Brian (Centre)

So it's now back to business as usual here at the academy with several trainees and amazing training conditions this week, we feel we've chosen our base resort of Pila well and are looking forward to the rest of the season here.

Overdue update and a trip to Italy.

I've not put a post up since the end of our first week in Tignes, with one group just finished and we were waiting for another.

Well, the second weeks group arrived and were mainly made up of Irish trainees (19 of them!) out on a selection camp for the World Schools Champs (being held in Gressoney, Aosta, In March).

We had a good few days of GS training with some improvements being made by the guys, once we'd sorted out some of the kit. We had 50kg guys turning up with 140 flex boots! At least we had Jules from the Boot Room (Chamonix) up here and on hand to help with the boot issues.

Coaches Harri, Euan and Brian with Trainee George

The planned slalom training didn't happen due to the glacier being stormbound on that day so the guys left on November 6th having done some worthwhile GS.

The storms that shut the glacier brought us some fresh, and very welcome, snow for a few days off and a bit of R & R for me.

So after a few days relaxing and free skiing, we headed off to Aosta to check out our base for the winter and to have a sneaky trip to the Milan International Motorcycle show which is the biggest of it's kind with a lot of new models on display and some great displays outside the halls.

Firstly though, we stayed in the centre of Aosta in the Hotel Europe which was very nice.

Aosta town hall - taken with Photsynth

After a nice meal we were set for the trip to Milan, via our base which is looking good for the winter, sitting up above Aosta town with some amazing views (below) and still only 10 minutes from the main Pila Gondola!

So today was back to business as usual with some SG training on the glacier in preparation for the 2 mens SG races this week and a DH on Friday. We've got one athlete out so he's pretty spoilt as far as training and feedback are concerned.

At the end of the week it's off to Ireland for a few days to shadow a coaching course for me, then back out here to Tignes where, hopefully, we may see snow start to fall in the villages.

Great Conditions and training in Tignes!

This last week has seen the first block of training for us up on the Grand Motte in Tignes.

With a reasonably small group for week one of 14 and 3 coaches, we had an awesome weeks training with only one day lost due to high winds on the glacier. The rest of the week saw mainly sunny skies and great snow with only one morning starting in the cloud.

One morning starting in the cloud 

One or two courses!!

The conditions worked in the athletes favour, meaning some great work being done, leading to meaningful improvement for all of those training here.
Yesterday saw the departure of the first group and arrival of a small number who are training over the weekend. This morning, we headed up to set slalom for just two trainees and were asked to team up with another club. It turns out they only have two trainees but they're some of the best in their region. The Comite Du Mont Blanc. This gave our guys something to aim for!

Looking down on this mornings course 

Panorama of the course using Photosynth 

Next group arrive tomorrow with 19 trainees from Ireland and two more coaches so it's going to be a busy week, with more snow forecast for mid week to refresh the glacier we're looking forward to it!

New Kit Arrivals

In the last few days we've had a load of new kit arrive for the season.

On Saturday, we picked up a load of brushgrip bases to replace the screw in's on most of our gates. This will make our coaches job easier this winter, and make setting much quicker with no keying in. Thanks to Ski Bitz for these and the discount they're offering for Impulse club members.

Then yesterday, a few boxes of Skis and boots for the coaching staff arrived making us a happy bunch.

A BIG thanks to the guys at Head UK for this lot. Not just race skis in there either. There's a few 'toys'.

Still lots to do before we travel out to the mountains later in the month, including setting up for the London SKi and Board Show at Earls Court next week - Come and visit us on Stand J1 (The Valle D'Aosta Stand), just as you walk into the exhibition hall. We'll also be in Birmingham, the following week at the British Ski + Board Show!

Irish Champs Bursary Winners.

We've just come back from Kilternan, near Dublin, where we attended the Irish Champs.

We've been at these races for a number of years now and this time, we gave away two bursaries to Irish racers, 1 male and one female.

In order to give all the Irish racers a chance, these prizes were drawn, rather than given to winners of categories. 

The two lucky winners were:

Emily Ainsworth and Alex Doogan. These guys won a weeks training package with us over the winter.

There was some great racing at the weekend, despite the weather!

We struggled to see the top of the slope through the fog and rain for the dual on Saturday!

With rain ALL day on Saturday and even some fog later in the day, the Dual slalom was interesting as you couldn't se the top of the slope from the bottom!

The rain eased off overnight and it was reasonably dry on Sunday, with low cloud visible over Dublin bay from the top of the hill.

Cloudy over Dublin Bay

The Mens race on Sunday saw what was probably the tights finish we've seen this summer with only 5 hundredths of a second seperating the top 3.

Tom Hales, 1 hundredth ahead of Gerard Flahive who was 4 hundredths ahead of Andrew Watson.

The slope itself is set in some great countryside and, even with the wet weather, it was a great weekend.

Views from around the slope

Some of the Irish lads modelling the events t shirts