English Alpine Championships 2009 – Bormio

Thursday 19.2.09 Children’s Giant Slalom

Another cold but sunny day in Bormio saw the Giant Slalom race take place for the children. Once again a cold wind kept the temperature down, especially in the shade but, as usual, this did not spoil the racing.

Once again the Stelvio piste was in excellent condition with a hard but even surface that allowed all racers a similar surface to attack. Ruts were rare and slip crews ensured that any that appeared were soon removed.

Here we saw the children completing the first run then stepping aside for the Minis to run the second course before the children completed the race. The vertical drop of 190 meters made for a tiring and testing course.

The event actually takes the place of two separate races, each counting for seed points, but with the combined result counting for the English Alpine Champions. Individual race results are as follows:

Race 1

Race 2  

English Alpine Championships 2009 – Bormio

Thursday 19.2.09 Minis Giant Slalom

The second race for the Minis at this year’s championships saw them competing for perpetual trophies supplied by Kandahar and D.H.O. The race took place before the second run of the Children’s’ Giant Slalom, on the same course and with a vertical drop of 190 meters was a real challenge.

The day was sunny but cold with a biting wind. The snow was firm and did not rut. The only work needed for the slip crews was to take off some loose snow that accumulated.

As usual the children attacked the course with the usual mix of aggression and no small amount of skill which shows the promise for the future that these young athletes demonstrate

The results are as follows and prize giving on Friday will, most likely, be an enjoyable end to this year’s races.

 Girls;

1^st           Megan Jenkins

2^nd          Helen Todd- Saunders

3^rd           Jessica Anderson

Boys

1^st           James Shaw

2^nd          Iain Innes

3^rd           Matthew Davis

English Alpine Championships 2009 – Bormio

Thursday 19.2.09 Ski Cross

Another brilliantly sunny day, but with a biting wind, saw the final day of the latest addition to the Alpine Championships, the Ski Cross event. The races took place on the Oga piste, a short drive out of Bormio, which had been prepared specially for the competition.

The piste, which had been used yesterday for training, was hard and in places icy. The course consisted of a series of jumps, rollers and turns before ending in a steep pitch down to the finish. For a Ski Cross race it was a longer than usual course but was ideal to demonstrate the fun and excitement of such a race.

Competition took the form of a series of training runs, followed by a timed run. The times were used to seed the knockout heats where four riders race together with the top two going through to the next round. This made for some falls but exciting skiing.

The female race only had four competitors so all went through to the final. We there saw Charlotte Davies take the win, followed by Jasmine Taylor, Sarah Hughes and Emily Dawes.

The male final was an exciting and close contest which saw Bradley Morgan leading into the final pitch. There he fell and missed the last gate allowing Edward Cozzie to win the race, closely followed by Tristram More-Molyneux. Bradley tried to climb up to round the last gate only to see William Tucker appear to take third place.