On the 7th February we headed out to Val Thorens, France for the next Europa Cup of the season and the next FIS race of the French Cup. We drove out with super coach Ian and again Ben joined us after deciding Ski Cross was the way to go (good call!)

On the 9th we had the Europa Cup qualifications and training.

During training we were all really enjoying the course as it had been well built and was generally pretty good fun to ski. The top of the course was fast with lots of rollers and was more of a gliding section, whereas the bottom was more technical with tight turns and interesting doubles. I was trying out a new pair of skis which I had borrowed for the event, so I was testing them out. Although they were quick, I wasn’t sure that they were me.

My qualification run went fairly average but I made too many small errors for it to be competitively fast. Overall it was a bit disappointing, but hopefully the French Cup would be better after the Europa Cup Finals were done.

I had a rare chance for a day’s free skiing with Yannick from the Dutch team as neither of us had qualified for the finals, and it was a great sunny day, just the place to be.

The French Cup race went almost exactly the same as the Europa Cup did, I just couldn’t seem to get rid of all the little mistakes that add up and scrub off of your speed. Whilst the racing didn’t go particularly well it was good to see everyone again in a place as cool as Val Thorens.

One thing I’ve learned about ski cross is how quickly you make friends from all over the world and we make an interesting group in the evenings; Russians, Dutch, Finns, Austrians, Germans. This was made even better by the fact one of my best mates from home was in Val T at the same time on holiday.

After the Europa Cup in Zweiszimmen, I went on with the Australian team to their base in Oulx, Italy for a few days of training before heading over to Le Sauze, France. There were no other Brits racing there, so I was on my own. It was great to link up with them and their Canadian coach Shawn.

We took a day off when we arrived to recover from the race and get everything sorted for the next couple of days. Oulx is a lovely place and really near to a number of resorts.

The next day we went free-skiing up at Montgenevre. We were having a good day just skiing around until one of the Australian girls fell on a short off-piste pitch and broke her leg. This obviously put a bit of a damper on the rest of our time in Oulx however once her leg had been sorted at the medical centre and she was given a set of crutches, Lily was pretty much back to normal, albeit without the use of one leg.

The next day we went on over to the next Europa Cup of the season which was in Le Sauze, France. We drove over on the morning of training and it was a beautiful drive through the mountains. I managed to get a good few hours in on the course which proved to be very useful. I had some really good runs and was feeling very confident for the race the next day.

The conditions were good for the race day, cold but the sun was out so it didn’t feel as cold as it was. I had my best run of the season. It was going really well, until the last jump, when I hit slightly backseat, landed and my ski popped off on landing. This left me sliding 100m to the finish, which obviously wasn’t good for my time.

Without that fall I would have qualified – so frustrating. That night I came down with the stomach bug that had been going around, so I spent the next day trying to sleep it off.

The next day there was a FIS race on the same course which was part of the French Cup, once again training went well but in the race run I just wasn’t able to achieve the form I had the day before and ended up with a pretty mediocre result, not really surprising given that I hadn’t really eaten for 36 hours.

After the FIS race we headed back to Oulx, the Australians were staying there until going to Davos for the next Europa Cup. However, I was returning back home for the first time in a good number of weeks early the next day, with a flight from Milan. I had one small problem in that the transfer bus never showed, but I managed to hitch a lift on a tour bus that just happened to be going to Milan too.

Overall this was a very good period of training and racing. I learnt a lot of new things and I’m always gaining experience with different types of courses and varying conditions.

I got home and found that one of my fastest pairs of skis had popped an edge, which means that they are only fit for the bin. I now need to try and replace them, but thanks to VocaLink, this should be possible.

After Lienz we drove over to the Second Europa Cup of the season which was held in
Zweiszimmen, Switzerland.

The course at Zweiszimmen is known for being fairly flat and with pretty small features, not something that is usually to my tastes however we were still hoping for good things from the race.

Training on the first day went really well with good runs on my own down the course and then running some mock heats with Max, Ben and Martin. I skied well again and was the fastest out of the British guys so I went to bed that night with high hopes for the race the next day.

The weather on the race day was pretty neutral, not especially warm or cold and a thin layer of grey clouds in the sky, resulting in pretty depressing conditions.

Unfortunately my qualifying run did not go as well as it had in training and I ran the line a little too wide into one of the turns and was not anywhere near as clean as I had been the day before at the top of the course. Both of which are things that will kill your time completely on a course that is short and flat.

All in all not one of my finer racing moments, however I’m looking forward to Le Sauze which I will be going to with the Australian team and is apparently a bit steep and with way more features.

I drove out to Lienz Austria on the 8th arriving on the 9th after having spent 24 hours in the car…hmm. There were three of us and about 12 pairs of skis. However when we arrived we very surprised and relieved to see that the apartment we had been given took up an entire two floors of the hotel and was enormous. It looked like it was going to be a good camp.

To make things even better I received a helmet cam for Christmas and was looking forward to testing out my new toy.

On the first day we went for some free skiing and took a look around the mountain where I got a bit over excited and used my helmet cam to film just about every run which was a bit unnecessary but good fun.

Light wasn’t great, but gives you a bit of an idea. I put together a short video of a couple of free runs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JITdLEkBta0

The weather on the second day was bad, as you can see in the video, so we decided it wasn’t worth actually skiing, so instead we went up to the ski cross course and pulled starts all day with the Australian team who had been based in Lienz since around Christmas time.

Day three we went over to a place called Sillian. We thought there was going to be one lift and one run to do some jumps training, however when we got there, there was a micro climate with absolutely beautiful weather and one of the best hills I have ever skied on with miles of piste hidden up over the top of a hill.

Jumps training went really well with a lot of progress being made by everyone and myself and Max trying out new ideas and techniques, which produced some interesting results. I will definitely be going back to Sillian if I’m ever in the area again.

Day four was pretty much a repeat of the day before, with the Sillian incredible weather and well built jumps providing another good day of training, with us moving on to trying things on the slightly bigger jumps in the park. Another successful day.

Day five we decided to ski in Lienz again as the weather had finally cleared up was in fact ridiculously warm which set the tone for the rest of the camp as the weather didn’t drop below about 18 degrees in the town and resulted in some interesting clothing options on the hill. Training GS and pulling starts in t-shirts and sunglasses…

The next few days we made the trip over to Mölltaler glacier in search of better snow and slightly cooler temperatures, and Coach Ian being convinced that the roller course he built in the summer would still be there…turns out that it was and we had a good day of training on some interesting rollers at high speed, which ultimately resulted in Max having a pretty impressive crash, video evidence will be forthcoming.

We were meant to be racing in the Austrian Cup, but due to the warm weather it was cancelled which is really frustrating.

Day eight we did some more GS training in Lienz with the Australian team, however we had a pretty short day due to it being unbearably hot resulting in the snow becoming useless fairly rapidly and everyone getting very tired, very fast. However the training we did get in was very good and we definitely made progress.

Day 9 was our last day of proper training in Lienz as the next day we would be packing up and getting ready for the drive over the Zweiszimmen in Switzerland. We linked up with the Aussies again and pulled starts and hit the first jump on the course. Again the weather was more like midsummer than mid January with me training in shorts and a t-shirt all day, something I have never done before. We finished training early as lots of packing had to be done and as it was the last day in Lienz we all went for a chilled lunch at one of the restaurants up the hill.

All in all the Lienz camp was a great success with lots of progress being made by everyone and was a good introduction to ski cross for Ben who had decided he would switch over from alpine and give it a go. It’s fairly safe to say he enjoyed himself as he could be heard mumbling “Oh my god, I love ski cross,” after being told that hitting jumps in the park did in fact count as training.

Many thanks to Ian, Max and Ben for making the camp so enjoyable, and of course to VocaLink, my sponsor for making it possible for me to be there.