It’s been another busy few days for me but I’ve rounded-up an eventful long weekend below:

Saturday 23rd – Terminal 5 again – third time lucky! Having had to cancel my flight for earlier in the week as I wasn’t going to Zweisimmen, I had booked a flight from London City which tied in nicely with the rest of the team from school arriving from Luton. BA decided to cancel it. So I had to try again with a flight from Heathrow which gave me 45 minutes from when my flight landed to get on the train to Meiringen. This being Zurich, I knew that things would run like clockwork, so I just trusted that BA would do their bit. Luckily everything worked out fine, and I made my train.

Sunday 24th – Had a morning of free skiing before the International Schoolboys Parallel Slalom. This is always a really fun race with each school putting in teams of four. We had a really strong team and cruised through the first few rounds and found ourselves in the quarter-finals and had high hopes of making though further. Sadly a crash from our first skier put paid to that so we were out which was a real shame.

Monday 25th – GS day, one that I was really looking forward to given the training that I was doing just before Christmas. The weather wasn’t too bad either. I can’t believe what a mess I made of my first run, I came to a complete stop at one point and had to pole like mad to get going again. Somehow I was lying in seventh place overall and second in my age group. I had a fantastic second run down a lovely open course. I put in the second fastest run and pulled up to fourth overall, only missing out on third place by 0.15sec. More importantly I was awarded the Viceroy Cup as the winner of my age group – a good day!

Tuesday 26th – What horrible weather, it was a complete white out, I am glad that it was slalom rather than GS, otherwise it would have been cancelled. First run was going really well until four gates from the end when I straddled a gate, I hiked back up and got back in the course, but lost a lot of valuable time. What was worse was that I climbed up one gate too far, so wasted even more time than ever. My second run was equally fast and I made no major mistakes, and posted the third fastest time, but that wasn’t enough to put me on the podium, sadly I finished fourth in my age group and eleventh overall which wasn’t great.

So now back to school for another exam on Thursday, now what can I remember about ideal gases……?!

I am now really looking forward to going back out to Bormio in February and racing in the English Championships which will mean five races in five days, that is going to be hard work!

Related categories: 2012, Marek Behnke, Olympics, Skiing

It isn’t Friday 13th, but it is Wednesday 13th. I have just had a phone call from the GB Ski Cross coach, it turns out that none of the GB guys are going to Zweisimmen for the Swiss Cup and Europa Cup races which means that I am the only one. My Mum spent all afternoon trying to sort out accommodation and transport for both of us to go which isn’t ideal as I would still be the only one racing. In the end given that it would cost about £450 before any flights and that she would have to turn down two days of work I have decided that I won’t be able to go either. Now I have to rebook my flights so that instead of flying to Switzerland on Thursday I won’t go until the weekend, when I will join the rest of my team mates from school for the International Schoolboys races in Meiringen. Such a lot of hassle and so frustrating as this was the only Europa Cup I could race this year.

I have also heard today that the Ski Cross Races at the English Champs in Bormio have been cancelled as only five people had entered. Not really surprising as they were expecting us to race GS in the morning and then Skier cross at night!

All in all not a good day.

Related categories: 2012, Marek Behnke, Olympics, Skiing

Boxing Day – 7.15am, I am on the road again. Yes I am heading back out to Bormio so it is the long drive south back to Terminal 5 at Heathrow again. I am hoping that we will be racing again this week in Chamonix where there are 2 night slalom races. Arrived in Bormio and found that we are not racing after all. FIS races only allow 6 racers from each nation, unless they are undersubscribed, we were beaten to it by some others, so we will have a week of training, and can watch the World Cup Downhill instead!

27th Dec – The blister on my toe has popped, I am going to have to be really careful. Blister plasters will need to be used to make sure I don’t do any more damage. It has been a great day as all the top racers in the world are training for the downhill. I went up the list with Axel Lund Svindal and David Poisson who are top 15 racers, it was great chatting to them. They are such big guys, especially Svindal, he is massive. Also we were free skiing today and did lots of bumps and powder – fantastic!

28th Dec – Went over to Oga today which is on the other side of the valley to our normal training area on Stelvio, too many people there because of the World Cup races. Had a really good day of GS training. Managed to get speared by a gate just below my ribs, I was in a tuck and just didn’t see it. That will be a massive bruise later!

29th Dec – WORLD CUP DAY, and we are training at Oga again, that is so unfair! Last year we got to see the whole race and got to chat with the racers in the finish. We did get to see a bit of the race after training it was a really good race. Svindal didn’t do that well, apparently he has been ill! It was won by Andrej Jerman from Slovenia, I didn’t see that result coming, they disqualified Mario Schreiber who came in second due to a boot infringement, I can’t believe that can happen with these guys.

30th December – Snowing today, so the light wasn’t that good, had another solid day of GS training, we will be training on the World Cup piste tomorrow so that should be fun but it will be really hard snow after the race.

31st December – Had a fantastic days training. It all sort of clicked into place. My coach shook my hand at the end and said really good skiing. My GS technique has really changed. Just a shame I don’t have any more races for a while. Really looking forward to this evening. Unlike last year we are being allowed to stay up to see the New Year in, we are going skating and then up to the hot springs. That will be a different way to celebrate!

Related categories: 2012, Marek Behnke, Olympics, Skiing

My week off skiing for Christmas was a bit of a rattle! Got home really late on Saturday and it was nice to see snow here. I had to be up early on the Sunday and Monday for a first aid course, for my ski instructors qualification. I am now trained to use a defibrillator! It was really interesting, I learnt all about CPR, hypothermia and frostbite – all useful stuff. My mum made me go to the doctors about the frostbite on my toe as the blister was massive – about 2.5 cm long. The doctor was useless, she had never seen frostbite before and hadn’t got a clue what to do, just gave me print off and told me I should take a month off skiing to let it heal. Not a chance!

December 23rd – We went down to London for our annual family skating get together at Tower of London – can you believe it, it was chucking it down with rain! It would have been so nice in the snow. We only just made it in time because I realised that I had lost my wallet, I must have had it nicked in Milan on my way home and I never noticed. I spent ages ringing round the banks, to get my cards replaced.

Christmas Eve – Now for serious Christmas celebrations. First up was Wigilia in London with the Polish half of the family and then a long boring drive up to Staffordshire to join the other half of the family for Christmas Day. Christmas lunch has to be my favourite meal of the year; my Grandmother does the best turkey.

Related categories: 2012, Marek Behnke, Olympics, Skiing