Strong Club Racing in the South West

Lat night we visited Torquay Ski Club to see some great training at a strong club, members of which had taken quite a few podiums at the Celtic Cup during the past weekend.
It was good to see training at this very well kept facility with good numbers on a warm Monday evening.

Torquay has a strong pedigree of producing great racers and national team members such as the Brown brothers (Rob, Sam and Tom) and their current top racer, Jai Geyer who is a member of the British Alpine team. It was good to see the man responsible for much of this, Ron Batley, at the centre. Ron is no longer coaching but the head coach, Chris Tonge, is continuing this legacy.
We are hoping to do some work in the future with the club and some of it's members so will be watching these racers with some interest.

A Busy Weekend and Kent Schools Winners

Well, we started the weekend early on Saturday at Milton Keynes for the Club National race there.
Impulse members did well in this race with the results below (amongst others).

Matt Thompson - 1st J2 and 1st Overall
James Grant - 2nd J2
Thomas Grant - 2nd J1

Well done to all Impulse racers at MK this weekend at the CN and the GP.

On Sunday attended and sponsored the Kent Schools Championships, giving out prizes of places on our indoor camps to two lucky athletes. The prizes were given on a bib number draw to make the chance of winning equal to all racers.
Our winners were:

Girls - Natalie Falshaw
Boys - James Fowles


Natalie and James will be joining us later in the summer for their training prizes.

We'll be at Manchester next weekend for both the club national and the grand prix races.

A Busy Summer So Far!

Well, we've been back from the mountains for over a month now and we've been pretty busy with setting up for next season and attending events all over the UK and the BASS race in Landgraaf over the bank holiday weekend, where several trainees achieved excellent results.

Looking up the 500m slope at Landgraaf

This weekend sees us attending the Milton Keynes Club National race on Saturday, helping with setting and helping our trainees prepare for the GP on Sunday.

On Sunday, we will be sponsoring the Kent Schools Championship at Bromley in association with our winter base, Aosta Race Academy. We will be giving away places on our indoor camps to a few lucky racers.

So good luck to all of our trainees racing over this weekend and we'll see some of you at MK and Bromley.

Landgraaf!!!

So, we're in Holland, at Landgraaf and training for the BASS races which are running over the bank holiday.

We arrived on Wednesday evening after the short drive from Calais, trained on Thursday and today with 5 trainees. Tomorrow, we have a few more joining us to bring in a total of 10 racers with Gerard and myself coaching.

View up the FIS slope

The deal with the hotel and centre is that we get a shed set up for ski prep and time on the slope for training in gates and free skiing.

The tuning shed

'Bieber' tuning

Training

So tomorrow brings more training on the hill with gate sessions in the morning and afternoon, then races on Sunday and Monday - watch this space for further details and information.

Aosta Race Academy Update

As some of you will know, we are well on our way with our new venture in Italy, the Aosta Race Academy.

We are very lucky to be working with Expedient Marketing the regions tourist board in setting up this venture. We will be working closely with them and also with the resort of Pila which is where most of our training will be based.
The last few months have been very busy with setting everything up but it is now all coming together with a new website for the academy coming online in the next few days, deals being brokered with sponsors and partner organisations. We still have our existing sponsors and partners on board, in fact Head skis are becoming more involved, running indoor camps with us this summer in the uk.

Our programme has already kicked off with the athletes already signed up and we'll be running our first fitness weekend in early June. From there, the athletes will have their fitness goals set out for the summer in preparation for the season ahead.

We'll have more updates on the academy and on Impulses summer activities through the next few months.

British Senior and Junior Champs round up

Well, we're now into the British Children's races in Meribel and the Scottish Champs in Courchevel but todays blog is an update on the British Champs which finished yesterday.

With varied weather, the champs ran well and we only lost the NJC downhill and the NJC girls GS due to the weather and conditions. It's a shame when we lose any races from the program but, given the conditions and weather this season, we were fortunate to get the races that we did.

One of the many early starts

The conditions meant a lot of early starts in order to get the best of the snow and to make the races as fair as possible for all entrants. So, with the 6.45 lifts open and 7.00 inspections, most races were done before the tourists had come out for the day!

Unfortunately, yesterday saw rain and low cloud which brought problems for the girls gs as the cloud was in over much of the course an, with this not moving, the race was cancelled after several hours of waiting.

The boys sl, however, actually benefitted from the wet conditions with the salt on the course made the track work well for the race. It was no fun standing there in the rain and the hill looked rough but a good race came out of it.

Rough looking conditions for the slalom in the rain

Very brown!!

Just below are a few of the results achieved by impulse racers over the champs:

Sam Fairbairn - 2nd Brit in the junior sl

Richard Goldsworthy - 3rd Brit in the junior sl

Sam and Richard on the podium

Matt Thompson:

1st in Junior dh

1st non team in dh
1st under 18 in dh
2nd in senior dh
3rd in senior sc
1st under 18 in sc
2nd junior in super g
3rd junior in sl
2nd overall in senior champs
1st under 18 overall in senior champs
1st overall non team member in senior champs
1st overall in junior champs
1st overall junior 2

Matt Thompson making one of his many podium appearances at the champs

It's not all work out here in Meribel though. One of our trainees celebrated his birthday today and the boys bought what can only be described as a firework to put on his cake!!!

Is there a fire extinguisher handy?!

Another 3 days of racing left now and a report will be blogged later in the week.

Super Combined completed!

With a very early morning, we went to inspect the super g at dawn. This was to ensure that we got the best of conditions and best chance to complete the race.

Inspection at dawn!

The early start paid off and we got a good race out of it, completing the race meant that we had the junior super g and the super combined in the bag.

Impulse athletes had mixed fortunes with 3 going out at different parts of the course but 2 completing. Elliot completed the super g, dropping his points in the process and Matt Thompson was 3rd Bit in the sg (2nd junior) and 3rd Brit (1st junior) in the super combined, giving him 2 junior titles so far.

Matt Thompson picking up his prizes for the super g and super combi

Rain this afternoon but should be clear tonight and the mens national champs slalom tomorrow.