- Untitled
- The season begins
- Jan 2010
- Feb 2010
- March 2010
- April 2010
- May 2010
- Ski Pictures 2010
- June 2010
- July 2010
- August 2010
- September 2010
- October 2010
- Late October
- November
- December 2010
- January 2011
- February
- The European Youth Olympic Festival
- March 2011
- The season ends
- May and June 2011
- End of June
- July
- August in Yorkshire
- September 2011
- 28 October 2011
- November/December 2011
- Season 2012
- February 2012
- March and April
- June
- 'Summer' 2012
April 2010
Searching for the Silver lining
April 21st 2010
‘Tuscany in the Spring’ enthused Jenny, the lovely manager of the GB Children’s team, ‘is delightful’. That’s when its not raining I guess. The weather we experienced at Abetone would have done Yorkshire proud. I did at least feel better about the 150 pounds that Sam had bullied me into spending on ‘storm jackets’ two days earlier. If that child doesn’t make it as a skier he has a solid career with the met office ahead of him.
Storm jackets come in one size and when I eventually found the bottom of the race piste, Honi was unmistakeable as the only moving tent on the mountainside. I pulled a gap in my sodden fringe to watch her take the chair before making my way to the cafe to drip dry.
One of the delights of our new international society is that green tea, to which I have developed a near addiction, is pretty universally available and I perfected the art of asking for Te Verde at the English races in Bormio. But when my best Italian in Abetone, produced instead a basket which included ‘cleansing tea’ and ‘elimination tea’ (not ideal in the circumstances) I should have seen it as a bad omen. Instead I hopefully chose a relaxation tea that didn’t do the job and tasted disgusting.
I decided to swim my way up to the finish. Honi, as a last minute entry had the third British seed which placed her second last to go. The slalom course, I had been assured, was well salted so the position should not affect her performance too much.
Competitors in children’s International ski events are a mixed bag. Sixty-eight nations attended Abetone but that did include San Remo and Monaco! There are, of course, some outstanding performances from the traditional ski-ing nations, and the Eastern European countries are big players . One’s own mountains are not necessarily a prerequisite for success as the Dutch (who have regular alpine training camps throughout the season) have shown this year, but they help. India and Albania, it seems, could do with a few more miles on snow as, I have to say, could some of our athletes.
I was reflecting on all this as I watched the times. I couldn’t see much of the course as skiers had to come over a brow for the last few gates but I could watch the timer and gauge how fast a run would be by the time the skier came into view. Honi came into my sights like the proverbial bat out of hell. I watched her through the finish before turning back to check the clock. As she is too small to ‘cross block’ (hit the gates as she come down) and therefore has to take a longer route, we weren’t expecting a winning time but I was pretty sure of a good one. I certainly wasn’t expecting a load of gobbledygook but that’s what the clock was showing: T3BD or something like that. Honi in a cat suit , minus the tent, was shaking uncontrollably but refused to go back up to collect her outer clothes. Then it was announced, ‘number 45, 46 seconds’ and something that I did not catch. The clock was still showing gobbledygook’ but who cared. ‘Honi’, I screamed ‘you are in the same second as the winning time’.
I was still trying to process this information, as I slithered back to the cafe, when I was stopped by an officious Italian woman who, I then noticed, had Honi in her clutches. ‘She has to go now’ I was told. ‘Go’ I eventually comprehended was not go for a course inspection or go for to collect her jacket; it was ‘go for a re-run’ because the clock had not registered her time. And if she did not GO now she would be disqualified.
As I watched my slip of a daughter go back up the chair with no outer clothing I wondered why they had announced a time if it was wrong, and why there was no back up timing? While I was in the cafe trying to find the answers to these questions Honi had shivered her way to the top of the hill, where the boys were now racing, been put straight into the start gate, and trying to replicate her first run, but tired confused, unprepared and cold, fell at the second last gate. Failure to complete the first run means no second.
Honi took the news like the pro that she is, which more than can be said for her mother . Thoroughly disillusioned we decided to watch Sam who was in seventeenth place (out of more than 100) in his first run. As the top thirty come down in reverse order he was well placed for a top fifteen place, or better, if his second run went well. He had pulled off a similar stunt in Slovenia where he came tenth so was quietly confident. It was a good second run, until the last gate, when his ski popped off.
I can’t remember if it was still raining at that point. I certainly didn’t see any silver linings.
And a little bit of Luck...
One of Honi’s heros is our local celebrity, three day event rider and Olympic silver medalist, Karen Dixon. Her tips for success are ‘keeping positive when things go wrong’ and working hard, but she is honest enough to admit that ‘a little bit of luck’ can make the difference.
If you wait long enough it comes your way. We were still waiting when we reached the Trois Vallees where the Scottish Champs at Courcheval are followed British Land Championships in Meribel. In the small world that is British Ski racing there are only a handful of favourites for each race and against such known competition the atmosphere is tense. If luck was following us it did not turn left as it came up the valley. Clissold performance in Courcheval was mixed. Honi disappeared in a cloud of snow in the first GS run. Bib no 2 she was rushed into the start gate and hit a snow bank (which arguably should have been cleared). Her second run was outstanding, but the fall left her decidedly wobbled.
The first day of the British Championships was designated as a SuperG practice. The idea is to ensure that all competitors are safe to participate in the actual competition. The safest thing for Sam, after four weeks of solid racing, would have been a day’s rest. But in the event the opportunity to ask for it never arose as we received a message (via the normal race week osmosis), that because of a predicted change in weather, the practice would become the race.
Bemoaning the loss of lie in and a day’s free ski-ing we dutifully turned out at 7.50 a.m. I shivered at the bottom and watched the clock. One minute lasts forever when you know that your 28 kilo daughter is hurtling down a slope on 175 cm skis. The worst bit is the final second when you are willing the clock to stop. I must have willed hard because Honi won. Heartened by this result I plucked up courage to take the chairlift up to watch Sam on the course. My older son Christian joined me. Unfortunately we forgot that in SuperG, unlike the other disciplines, the Children 1 racers do not go first, on the contrary the higher seeded kids start, so we missed Sam ski into second position.
Back at the bottom and congratulating Team Clissold on their great start to the Championship we heard a rumour that perhaps today’s race might not be THE race because perhaps the bad weather forecast was wrong and it might be possible to run the REAL race tomorrow! We trudged back to the car with mixed emotions and I pledged to do rain dances all night. They failed and the REAL race took place on Wednesday. Honi won again, despite apparently making a serious line error which brought her to a standstill mid course. The mind boggles as to how fast she was going before the serious error. Sam finished third which was 'okay'- he is not a fan of SuperG anyway! The real loser of the dual race fiasco was Sam’s great friend and adversary Max Baggio, who, having won the race that wasn’t the race, was ‘yellow flagged’ and had to do a second run which saw him finishing ninth.
Day two, (or possibly three) of the championship was GS for boys and Slalom for girls. Sam was the fastest 1995 in 2009 so had great hopes which always makes me nervous. The conditions were appalling (the threatened bad weather had arrived): fog and slush. My parents had made a major effort to join us to see their grandchildren race and were stalwartly dealing with mud and sludge and coffee in plastic cups so I was seriously praying for at least four finishing times. Well someone must have been listening because Sam won the first run and held his lead after the second. Then Honi won too. The slalom course was steep and tricky, a number of key players did not finish and despite still being too small to cross block Honi bounced her way to a winning time.
We should have been doing high fives but then the realisation dawned that both kids were in the running for the Overall Championship in their respective age groups. No way, I thought as I tossed and turned throughout the night could we get through another day without a missed gate, a false start, a caught edge, a pre-release (when the ski comes off as in Abetone) or just a good old-fashioned fall. When Honi skied comfortably into second place in the GS and we knew she had clinched her award the pressure mounted. Sam was lying third after his first slalom run. The previous year he had straddled in his second. He has a very distinctive slalom style, I kept one eye on him and one on the clock. I didn't think it was his best but what do I know? He didn't either but it was good enough. His time put him equal first for the second run and second overall. He had achieved a’ Bode Miller’, one bronze, one silver, one gold, no one else would be near to him on points.
In retrospect we knew both kids were in the running. I think what clinched it this time was their ability to ski any terrain in any conditions. And, going back to Karen Dixon, they bounced back after the bad times. Then there was that little bit of luck. That’s what I told their great friend and mentor David Hughes but he replied with the famous maxim: ‘Isn’t it funny that the harder I work.......’
April 21st 2010
‘Tuscany in the Spring’ enthused Jenny, the lovely manager of the GB Children’s team, ‘is delightful’. That’s when its not raining I guess. The weather we experienced at Abetone would have done Yorkshire proud. I did at least feel better about the 150 pounds that Sam had bullied me into spending on ‘storm jackets’ two days earlier. If that child doesn’t make it as a skier he has a solid career with the met office ahead of him.
Storm jackets come in one size and when I eventually found the bottom of the race piste, Honi was unmistakeable as the only moving tent on the mountainside. I pulled a gap in my sodden fringe to watch her take the chair before making my way to the cafe to drip dry.
One of the delights of our new international society is that green tea, to which I have developed a near addiction, is pretty universally available and I perfected the art of asking for Te Verde at the English races in Bormio. But when my best Italian in Abetone, produced instead a basket which included ‘cleansing tea’ and ‘elimination tea’ (not ideal in the circumstances) I should have seen it as a bad omen. Instead I hopefully chose a relaxation tea that didn’t do the job and tasted disgusting.
I decided to swim my way up to the finish. Honi, as a last minute entry had the third British seed which placed her second last to go. The slalom course, I had been assured, was well salted so the position should not affect her performance too much.
Competitors in children’s International ski events are a mixed bag. Sixty-eight nations attended Abetone but that did include San Remo and Monaco! There are, of course, some outstanding performances from the traditional ski-ing nations, and the Eastern European countries are big players . One’s own mountains are not necessarily a prerequisite for success as the Dutch (who have regular alpine training camps throughout the season) have shown this year, but they help. India and Albania, it seems, could do with a few more miles on snow as, I have to say, could some of our athletes.
I was reflecting on all this as I watched the times. I couldn’t see much of the course as skiers had to come over a brow for the last few gates but I could watch the timer and gauge how fast a run would be by the time the skier came into view. Honi came into my sights like the proverbial bat out of hell. I watched her through the finish before turning back to check the clock. As she is too small to ‘cross block’ (hit the gates as she come down) and therefore has to take a longer route, we weren’t expecting a winning time but I was pretty sure of a good one. I certainly wasn’t expecting a load of gobbledygook but that’s what the clock was showing: T3BD or something like that. Honi in a cat suit , minus the tent, was shaking uncontrollably but refused to go back up to collect her outer clothes. Then it was announced, ‘number 45, 46 seconds’ and something that I did not catch. The clock was still showing gobbledygook’ but who cared. ‘Honi’, I screamed ‘you are in the same second as the winning time’.
I was still trying to process this information, as I slithered back to the cafe, when I was stopped by an officious Italian woman who, I then noticed, had Honi in her clutches. ‘She has to go now’ I was told. ‘Go’ I eventually comprehended was not go for a course inspection or go for to collect her jacket; it was ‘go for a re-run’ because the clock had not registered her time. And if she did not GO now she would be disqualified.
As I watched my slip of a daughter go back up the chair with no outer clothing I wondered why they had announced a time if it was wrong, and why there was no back up timing? While I was in the cafe trying to find the answers to these questions Honi had shivered her way to the top of the hill, where the boys were now racing, been put straight into the start gate, and trying to replicate her first run, but tired confused, unprepared and cold, fell at the second last gate. Failure to complete the first run means no second.
Honi took the news like the pro that she is, which more than can be said for her mother . Thoroughly disillusioned we decided to watch Sam who was in seventeenth place (out of more than 100) in his first run. As the top thirty come down in reverse order he was well placed for a top fifteen place, or better, if his second run went well. He had pulled off a similar stunt in Slovenia where he came tenth so was quietly confident. It was a good second run, until the last gate, when his ski popped off.
I can’t remember if it was still raining at that point. I certainly didn’t see any silver linings.
And a little bit of Luck...
One of Honi’s heros is our local celebrity, three day event rider and Olympic silver medalist, Karen Dixon. Her tips for success are ‘keeping positive when things go wrong’ and working hard, but she is honest enough to admit that ‘a little bit of luck’ can make the difference.
If you wait long enough it comes your way. We were still waiting when we reached the Trois Vallees where the Scottish Champs at Courcheval are followed British Land Championships in Meribel. In the small world that is British Ski racing there are only a handful of favourites for each race and against such known competition the atmosphere is tense. If luck was following us it did not turn left as it came up the valley. Clissold performance in Courcheval was mixed. Honi disappeared in a cloud of snow in the first GS run. Bib no 2 she was rushed into the start gate and hit a snow bank (which arguably should have been cleared). Her second run was outstanding, but the fall left her decidedly wobbled.
The first day of the British Championships was designated as a SuperG practice. The idea is to ensure that all competitors are safe to participate in the actual competition. The safest thing for Sam, after four weeks of solid racing, would have been a day’s rest. But in the event the opportunity to ask for it never arose as we received a message (via the normal race week osmosis), that because of a predicted change in weather, the practice would become the race.
Bemoaning the loss of lie in and a day’s free ski-ing we dutifully turned out at 7.50 a.m. I shivered at the bottom and watched the clock. One minute lasts forever when you know that your 28 kilo daughter is hurtling down a slope on 175 cm skis. The worst bit is the final second when you are willing the clock to stop. I must have willed hard because Honi won. Heartened by this result I plucked up courage to take the chairlift up to watch Sam on the course. My older son Christian joined me. Unfortunately we forgot that in SuperG, unlike the other disciplines, the Children 1 racers do not go first, on the contrary the higher seeded kids start, so we missed Sam ski into second position.
Back at the bottom and congratulating Team Clissold on their great start to the Championship we heard a rumour that perhaps today’s race might not be THE race because perhaps the bad weather forecast was wrong and it might be possible to run the REAL race tomorrow! We trudged back to the car with mixed emotions and I pledged to do rain dances all night. They failed and the REAL race took place on Wednesday. Honi won again, despite apparently making a serious line error which brought her to a standstill mid course. The mind boggles as to how fast she was going before the serious error. Sam finished third which was 'okay'- he is not a fan of SuperG anyway! The real loser of the dual race fiasco was Sam’s great friend and adversary Max Baggio, who, having won the race that wasn’t the race, was ‘yellow flagged’ and had to do a second run which saw him finishing ninth.
Day two, (or possibly three) of the championship was GS for boys and Slalom for girls. Sam was the fastest 1995 in 2009 so had great hopes which always makes me nervous. The conditions were appalling (the threatened bad weather had arrived): fog and slush. My parents had made a major effort to join us to see their grandchildren race and were stalwartly dealing with mud and sludge and coffee in plastic cups so I was seriously praying for at least four finishing times. Well someone must have been listening because Sam won the first run and held his lead after the second. Then Honi won too. The slalom course was steep and tricky, a number of key players did not finish and despite still being too small to cross block Honi bounced her way to a winning time.
We should have been doing high fives but then the realisation dawned that both kids were in the running for the Overall Championship in their respective age groups. No way, I thought as I tossed and turned throughout the night could we get through another day without a missed gate, a false start, a caught edge, a pre-release (when the ski comes off as in Abetone) or just a good old-fashioned fall. When Honi skied comfortably into second place in the GS and we knew she had clinched her award the pressure mounted. Sam was lying third after his first slalom run. The previous year he had straddled in his second. He has a very distinctive slalom style, I kept one eye on him and one on the clock. I didn't think it was his best but what do I know? He didn't either but it was good enough. His time put him equal first for the second run and second overall. He had achieved a’ Bode Miller’, one bronze, one silver, one gold, no one else would be near to him on points.
In retrospect we knew both kids were in the running. I think what clinched it this time was their ability to ski any terrain in any conditions. And, going back to Karen Dixon, they bounced back after the bad times. Then there was that little bit of luck. That’s what I told their great friend and mentor David Hughes but he replied with the famous maxim: ‘Isn’t it funny that the harder I work.......’