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.