BISS Racing Indoor Championships

Monday  23^rd September saw the 2013 British Independent Schools Ski Racing Indoor Champs, run by BISS Racing and Impulse at The Snow Centre Hemel Hempstead.

There was a great turnout for this inaugural event with 50 teams, totaling two hundred skiers, entered over the two races to be held on the day. Several teams travelled from as far afield as Taunton, Portsmouth, Solihull and Telford, arriving the preceding evening for training at the centre with coaches from Impulse. This gave all the skiers, especially the younger, less-experienced skiers a good opportunity to get used to the conditions before the race.

Goody bags all ready for the competitors

Race day was busy, with the morning taken up with junior racers and the afternoon with senior racers. The competition was run on a two run format, with the fastest run to count for individual and team prizes. 

Some of the best skiing schools in the UK were represented along with many schools for whom this was their first taste of a competition of this kind. The one run to count format was aimed particularly at these groups, taking away an element of pressure for their skiers.

 

Racers Eye view of the mornings course

The element of some great prizes donated by several sponsors was a great bonus for the day with a pair of Head skis given away in the morning and another in the afternoon. Accommodation, passes and training for the four team members of the winning teams at the BISS Racing Alpine Championships in Aosta, Italy in 2014 was the schools main prize.

Off the Start Ramp

With the conditions initially soft, it didn’t take long to get to the harder snow underneath which, with some great coursework for the coaches on hand, held up excellently through each ccompetition and, in a tightly fought morning competition, Reeds took the team prize, closely followed by Danes Hill and in the afternoon it was Portsmouth Grammar in top spot with Reeds a close second.

We were fortunate to have Emily Sarsfield on hand to present prizes. Emily is the nation’s number one female Ski Cross athlete, who will be heading to the Winter Olympic Games to represent Britain in Sochi next year. Emily coaches for Impulse when she has time and she is also ambassador for British Snowsports’ new campaign, Go Ski Go Board, and

BISS run races and training for school ski teams in the UK and also in the Alps, in conjunction with Impulse Racing, run by the former national team Head Coach, Phil Brown.

If you or your school are interested in setting up a ski racing team, contact BISS and Impulse Racing, who can advise you; help you build your team; run your training programmes; and help select the racing events at each level.

A huge thanks must go to all the sponsors of the event:

Head Skis
Solutions 4 Feet
Ski Bitz
Ski Bartlett
Luscombe Organic Drinks
Nakd Bars
Graze
Impulse Racing

Last Indoor Summer camp

This week we ran our last indoor summer camp at Hemel with the English Artificial Slope Squad joining us on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday being given over to our new schools programme.

Working with technical training for the most part and gate sessions in the afternoon, The groups worked through improving through drills and skills and then put this to work in the gates.

It was great to work with a lot of trainees who are new to ski racing and will be doing a lot more this coming season. It was good for the trainees to work with our group of coaches which comprised on current and ex national team members along with some assistant coaches working toward their qualifications and learning as they go.

We will be running an indoor camp during October half term at Hemel as well as our usual glacier training in Tignes from 20th October.

All pictures courtesy of Matt Birch Pictures who worked with us on the final day of the camp

Rain stopped play

Day seven of our summer camp and the weather caught up with us today. Having had evening thunderstorms a couple of times, we had one on the hill that drove us down this morning after only a few runs. 

The snow was good for our first day on the slalom skis and things were looking good for a good days technical training but the storm came in very quickly, catching a few teams out. 

Amazing double rainbow last night

It’s been a great camp so far and we’ve had good training on the hill with great conditions for GS. The remaining few days will be spent on slalom. We’ve had some great afternoon fitness training and other activities of which there is a great choice in Tignes, all within easy reach on foot.

We’ve all been following the olympic coverage, albeit in French. It’s been great to see Team GB picking up the medals over the last few days and moving into 3rd place on the table. Seeing Andy Murray take the gold, beating Federer at Wimbledon (he could've pulled that forward a month!) Let’s hope we can keep it up!

Summer in Tignes

We have returned to Tignes for our annual summer camp and ten days on the glacier. We're on day four and have had four excellent days of GS training.
The glacier looked worse for wear when we arrived but this was just the view from the bottom. When we got up there, the conditions were great for training. It's a pretty short ride up to the glacier (about 10 minutes) on the funicular.

Great panoramic view from the top of our training piste

One of the advantages of Tignes is the off snow activities during the summer, many of which are free! with an activity card from your accommodation provider. So far we have used the pool, archery, mini golf and are looking at kayaking on the lake and the water jump and new blob jump.

Stunning view to Val Claret across the lake

We have another two days of GS training left and will then run slalom. The trainees return home on the 9th and I then head off to Aosta to sort out some details for our winter programme there.

Impulse and ARA Summer Programme in Full Swing

We got back from a great weekends racing and training a Landgraaf earlier this week and the rest of our summer programme is in full swing.

Impulse Athlete Finlay Davies. 2 podiums over the weekend

As usual, Landgraaf was great and good training for the athletes. In fact, on Friday, we had the whole training slope to ourselves!

We'll be visiting Landgraaf again in September with an adult group and a separate group of children and juniors.

The rest of our summer training is now starting to get booked up. We have a glacier training camp in Tignes, along with our summer indoor camps which can be attended on a daily basis and evening training at on 3 evenings per week. All of this is bookable on our website.

Tignes last Autumn

A good day for Impulse and ARA

well, that's the last day of the champs here in Meribel as far as the Juniors are concerned and a great couple of great results for us here today and overall in the Juniors. Matt Thompson came 2nd Jun 2 and overall in the Slalom but then was on the second step of the podium for the jun 2 and overall combined junior prize. It was a close call for the overall!

Matt Thompson 2nd in the slalom

And 2nd in the overall!

In the Junior one category, Richard Goldsworthy made third place in the slalom, just dropping a place after the first run.

Richard Goldsworthy on the 3rd step of podium in todays slalom

So, a great day with points scores for most of our guys. An unfortunate niggling knee issue resurfacing for our Jamaican team athlete, Chelcie Bird, resulting in a trip to the med centre and a day out tomorrow. She scored her first points of the season yesterday to break her duck and install some confidence.

In Courchevel, our children's racers were in action at the Scottish children's champs with conditions being a little soft. They now move over to Meribel whilst the Juniors head to Courchevel for the next four days.

ONLY FOUR MORE EARLY STARTS!!! - I would say sunrises but, with the predicted rain/snow, it's likely to be cloudy for at least a couple of them.

Checking out the first course under floodlight this morning

Another bloody sunrise!!!

8 Early starts to go!!

So today saw the Super Combi and Junior Super G at the British champs in Meribel.
With our 5th of 13 early starts, we got off to a good start in the Super G leg but were subject to a few delays during the race making the SL delayed in starting.
Impulse and British team racer Matt Thompson was lying in 3rd place in the juniors after the super g but was unable to capitalise and improve on this as he got caught on the first steep pitch and straddled in the slalom.

Matt Thompson collects 3rd place for the super G

Matt in the slalom leg of the super combi

Good news for the BSA group racing with us this week, Laurie Taylor picked up 3rd place J1 in the super combo with a great slalom run helping him on the way.

That's the speed races finished here now and they've been some of the best that we've had here in my memory. Tomorrow we switch to the tech races with the mens national champs GS and a womens national champs SL. We should be seeing British team member Dave Ryding in action, recently scoring a win in the Slovenian champs and another result with a sub 10 point score.