Race kids 2012/2013

A snowHead

spud, just let me know if you are around in the summer!! be more than happy to use your skills!!

A snowHead

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A full season out ski training would be a dream to Robert! He's never ever had a season out anywhere. A week out on snow just before a snowrace if he's lucky and our pocket can support it! rolling eyes

Of course.... the weekly 2hr ski race training at Hemel ski race club with Jon Reidy and the dryland strength and conditioning training at Performance Hertfordshire contribute too! School work is of mighty importance! Little Angel

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Phew, we finally got a night off. Schedule has been:

Tue 8/1: SL training
Wed 9/1: GS training, Wyllerløypa (bigger, steeper hill 20mins away)
Thu 10/1: SL training
Fri 11/1: GS race and a couple of hours freeskiing
Sat 12/1: Freesking with friends, 5hrs
Sun 13/1: Freesking with friends, 3.5hrs
Mon 14/1: SG training
Tue 15/1: SL training

... all at Kolsåsbakken unless stated overwise. They had cross country skiing at school today, plus he banged his angle up a bit yesterday, so he dropped a planned visit to another local hill to ski with classmates this evening. And this is the boy who didn't know if he could be bothered a couple of months ago Wink

Latest is that he'd rather drop football and do more of the dryland programme when the summer months arrive.

Training tomorrow, then 3 days racing, then onto next week's training, but at least we have a couple of race free weekends coming up, before shooting off to Hafjell/Kvitfjell for the half term week. Really looking forward to a week away with family and friends, skiing 100% for fun and pleasure. Hopefully we'll find some powder, and we'll definitely be in the wooded trails.

Last week's Friday Cup race is probably best assigned to the history books - Harald was a fair bit off the pace and not happy about it. His skiing is great to look at, but he's lacking a bit of aggression and generally cutting a pretty wide line. But that's what training is for, I guess.

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squawker,

Sounds really busy!

We are in the usaul routine of skiing Sat and SUnday at Nakika and one evening at COP. For U12 the Naksika dyas would generally have a half day of course each day, recently KK and GS to prepare for first race and techncial free skiing in afternoon. Occasionally a full day of differnt courses. Even full course days have quite a lot of free skiing in between to get to and from course

U10 is usually technical drills in Am and technical free skiing in pm with occasional go at U12 course. U10 does gates mid week, U12 only occasionally do gates mid week

U12 ramping up for big provinicial series race at Jasper next weekend. This has switched format and so it will be intresting. Last year it was best 2 of 4 runs at GS and SL. This year is one run at a GS course, one run at a differnt GS course , ditto for KK. Hence 4 separate events, but less actually racing, than last year. Also its not clear their will be age medals either. We'll se how it goes. Son still only has SL skis, GS should arrive tomorrow, so we'll see how he works out in them. COach told him he only needed SL at beginning of year (before he saw him ski) based on his size. Now he's seen him ski, he needs GS , for safety reasons as he's right on his edges and SL has way too much side cut and is too short for stability, his knee is chattering apparently.

Its clear we do way less racing than in Europe.........

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Oh yeah, that's more like it - 2nd place in a decent field and totally on his game. Happy Dad, happy Harald.

200 racers tonight, and I only lost two runtimes. Not bad, especially after some ****** ran down my timing cable and chopped it in two. 10mins of minor panic before I decided to go wireless at the finish line.

After all it is free

And crash, back down to earth. GS on Saturday, DNF1. SL today - great 1st run, skied really well to 8th place in a very competitive field, then DSQ2. Screwed up the exit from a 3 gate flush and turned between the closing pole and the next gate. Which he knew was wrong - gotta stay on the ball. He was one of the last to start in the 2nd run and the wind was bitingly cold. The two kids in front of him both fell causing delays. Then he had a couple of hairy moments in some bulletproof steeps, but he kept it together and things were looking ok until suddenly it was all over. A hamburger was needed to quell the disappointment!

squawker,

Do you do all the timing then?

Just as a matter of interest what % kids ski race from the genreal population? IS it one of the top winter sports?

GS skis have arrived. Decent outing on them yesterday on a really tough practice course.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

gryphea,

Sometimes it feels like I do all the timing, but its not quite that bad.... I think there are four of us in the club that know the Alge Timing Computer well enough to run the races. Responsibility for the races is divided up between the different age groups. We're trying to teach one or two parents in each age group to use the system, but we've been struggling to bring new blood on board. Harald is U12 but follows the training programme for U14, so I have a foot in at least two camps, plus I know the hardware side of things (cabling etc.) better than anyone else, so I guess I get asked more than than most. Last Friday the three other experienced guys were all away for the weekend with older kids at a qualifying cup (qualifier for Topolino and Whistler) so it fell to me again.

I enjoy doing the timing, although its quite a responsibility - always nervous before the start.

Top winter sports would be cross country skiing and handball. There's also some hockey and rink bandy, biathlon, a bit of ski jumping. I guess most kids do some alpine skiing each winter, but only a small proportion are actually part of a training or race programme. Wouldn't know percentages, but Harald is the only one of 60 in his grade at school that you could say races. The alpine WC is very popular on the TV, but not as much as xc and biathlon.

Good luck with the GS skis. Very happy with H's Heads for this season - torsionally stiff, but longitudinally quite soft, so 165 wasn't such a big step up as it could have been. And as H says, they're glued to the snow, just like Heads should be. This week we might even get to train some GS now that there's plenty of snow on the hill - been mostly SL so far.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

squawker,

C got heads too. They also look great as he has the head boots too! He seems to have slotted right into them; but his first race is sat so he hasn't really got enough miles on them, but still better on those than on his slalom. He's on 144s!! His Sl are only 130. He is a great technical skier, the best in his u12 group really, but he's not the best racer. Hopefully the length and extra weight on the skis may get him a little more speed. He only ways 61lbs, so quite few boys are packing 40lbs on him. Sadly for him both me and OH were late growers, but OH ended up as ^ 6 1 1/2, so he will grow but not until 15 I reckon.

Racing sounds about the same as here then. There always seema lot of kids but then most live in Clagary which is a very large city. Again I think C is the only one in his grade racing competitively.

Hockey is the biggey here that outpunhes anything else, but with soccer having a huge participation base too

snow reports

skimottaret, Thanks for your support Scott! .......Would you like to be my PA? LOL!! Yes indeed... Very proud Mama Poth. Robert had an exceptional race result today skiing for GB in the Czech Republic. All his fitness work all year round is paying off!

Just wish we could either win the lottery or find a very nice sponsor for him so he continue into FIS next year!! wink

You know it makes sense.

Gillian,

Great news! I thought there was a slight possibility of GB funding for some juniors?

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

gryphea, No idea? You seem to know more than me all the way over in Calgary!! Would be nice though if you're part of the some?

A snowHead

Gillian,

Plugboy has always said some of the juniors are currently being funded. Do a search, there's loads of posts I think. SOmething to do with David Gower's nephew!.

A snowHead

gryphea, Only the Junior girls (FIS/EC team) are having their coach & his expenses paid for. The rest of the juniors are all funding themselves. All the boys are on their own private programmes or with an academy of some sort. None get any funding from BSS. Just like the Senior mens/womens WC speed teams. TJ, Dougie & Chemmy are all fundsing themselves without anything from BSS (apart from the team clothing & use of an old team van in Europe)
Gillian, Well done to Robert in all his results. If you want to stay in the British system in Juniors then don't let him be any good at Speed events, BSS dont want to know! Even in Tech there isnot much help either. Big private sponsors are the only way to be able to carry on, or be megga wealthy!

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Plugboy,

So why only the girls?

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Not a bad day yesterday at the 51. Ski Inter Kriterium in the Czech Republic! Competing for Great Britain Robert WON both runs of u16 Slalom and won the race overall by 0.43 secs.Robert has made GB ski racing history! There is a nice press release on the BSS website but I don't have the link on my fiddly phone!
Happy

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Gillian,

Very impressive. Congratulations to him,

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Gillian, That's a great result. You must be very proud.

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Almost did the double today with his results in the Giant Slalom at the Ski Interkriterium, Czech Republic. Robert zoomed to 2nd place overall and posted the fastest 2nd run time. Ricky in the Czech Republic has been fantastic. The top of the mountain resembled Narnia!

After all it is free

So the boys are back from provincials in Jasper and had a really fun if tiring weekend. The roads were good, so it was about 4hrs 15 to get there. It wasn't too cold (Jasper can be in Jan).

The race run was tough with a really tough pitch that took out some skiers and it got pretty rutted (slightly too high percentage DNFs, OH said there were lots of tears), as there were around 240 kids (maybe 140 boys) , all in U12 category (ie 10 and 11 year olds), pretty much most clubs in province took part (including Pano who are based in BC but race in Alberta) with maybe far south ones being exception.

Son is 10 and it was fairly tough as he was competing with 11 year old boys (first year of no age medals) , he is small anyway and some of them are giants (girls too).

He did well. Sat was Kinder Combi and he seems to have been 38 overall and 56 overall (two different courses). Both equate to around 10th in his age category for boys. Apparently the courses were pretty much like a GS course, which is shame as they raced it on their slaloms and his are small (as he is small).

Sunday was GS Sunday morning he had a really good race , came 9th of the all the boys, 19th overall. That equated to 2nd in his age category for boys.

Sunday afternoon we don't know how he did as the results aren't up and live timing didn't seem to work at all. Clearly not in the top ten for all boys, but we'll see how he did against his age category and overall when the results come out.

The girls in the province seem to rock, but some are enormous too.

Overall he was really pleased to be consistently in the top ten for boys his age (gien the field) and a top ten for boys overall (2nd in age) is really great.

Red Deer next in 4 weeks; this will be slalom and KK. Slalom may be more his thing as his weight counts agaisnt him less, and even makes him more agile.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

gryphea,

Sounds like a great weekend. Well done to your lad.

Harald didn't race this weekend and won't next weekend either. Of course, he was skiing with his mates Friday evening and both Saturday and Sunday, but I just drive them there and let them get on with it. Lots of kickers and boxes and big jumps and step ups as far as I can tell. Next weekend there is what I guess you call a KK, but based on experience the course will be very boring, easy backwards and forwards, going from very tight to slightly less tight and back again - Harald's not especially keen and his buddy is away for the weekend, so maybe we'll do some family stuff instead.

SL training tonight, and there should be a GS course for veterans/adults/parents/old farts, like me.

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squawker,

GS for oldies sounds great. I often wish our club would provide a coach occasionally.

KK is suddenly big here follwoing Alberta Alpine's restructuring. Not entirely sure why. Its really combo SL and GS.

C's club have a SkiCross training day on friday as most of the schools are off. I haven't really decided whether C will go. Ski Cross scares me, anything with more than 1 kid is scarey, so we will see.

The coach announced his team did well at the weekend following digestion of th results. Its true in that most kids were in overall top 100, ie first half to a third of the pack. He has announced they need to take more risks to podium Risk doesn't sit well with my son, so we'll see how he responds.

Its a chilly one for training tonight:
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/caab0049

The U10s don't ski if the predicted high is less than -20. The U12s are hardcore, arm themselves with warmers, masks etc and still go.

snow reports

gryphea,

We had a skicross camp this weekend, with Hedda Berntsen (former WC skier and Norway's best female skicross racer). Harald and Kristoffer got a couple of runs, even though they were on their twintips. Our hill actually staged the Norwegian skicross championships last year, which was quite a feather in their cap. It is of course utter madness - four lunatics on GS skis going hell for leather against each other.

We're going through a warm patch, but at least this evening it looks like we'll be on the cold side of freezing and no rain/snow...

http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Akershus/B%C3%A6rum/Kols%C3%A5s_skisenter/

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

spud,

I'm sure KK is great for the youngsters if the course represents a fun challenge to them, the way you describe it. We haven't seen it much over here to be honest.
Our rationale for dropping this particular race is that past experience points at a course which is aimed at getting all the 8-9 y.o.s down the hill, rather than challenging U12s who cross block SL gates at will and race GS on 165s. Anyway, its the mother-in-law's birthday on Saturday, so we won't have to rush from the ski slope to the restaurant via the shower Very Happy

We just came through a cold snap - training SG in speed suits in -20C was a chilly affair, but right now we're bobbling around freezing with fresh snow again overnight.

gryphea,
Only got in three runs in the GS gates last night, but that was plenty to feel it in the legs and get the heart and lungs pounding. What fun - wish I was a kid again and could learn to do it properly. Even when I feel fast I know I don't stand a chance against Harald!

A snowHead

squawker,

Here KK is a big feature on the U14 circuit as well as U12. I kind of feel slightly like you. Its the two styles of gate thing and the different turns on the same skis. Here the SL gates are stubbies at U12 anyway as they don't race full SL gates.

A snowHead

First race for U10s tomorrow. Dual slalom at Sunshine. Its going to be quite warm as it has been here recently. I volunteered so I'm finish referee which I've never been before, not even really sure what I have to do!

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squawker, Intersting, thanks for the update

So the Sunshine race was OK, daughter got a good time in am , but missed a gate in pm which ruled her out of anything. Also new this year were no age ribbons, which is pretty tough age 8. So only 1 8 year old girl featured in top ten and she was 9th. A little disheartening when you are that age. Also there were way too many kids, last year they got 4 runs and 2 best counted. This year two runs and they both counted. Not a great format.

This weekedn REd Deer for the U12s . Second provincial race, KK and SL. So a new expereince for us River Valley skiing , which is apparently boilerplate and cold.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

River valley skiing was interesting. It was tough, steep pitches and giant rollers. The hill was better than I thought, but it was weird getting there. You sort of drive through flat farmer's fields on gravel roads and you come to this ranch type sign saying ' Canyon ski resort', then suddenly you descend very steeply into the river valley and the runs are down the side of there, pretty much ending at the river.

Red Deer , the local city, is obviosuly a place between other places that get lots of sport tournaments etc, I bumped into a friend at our hotel breakfast there for 'cheer'

So Sat was 2 KKs and Sun was 2 SLs. The conditions were very tough, especially for the boys, who go after the girls as it was warmish and the ruts got giant, kind of like moguls. The first KK was set to be really tricky and only 50 of the 95 boys made it down

Son did OK, he came 11th , 1th, 22nd and 31st overall which equated to 2nd, 2nd, 5th and 6th for boys his age. So his age results were good, but he was disappointed he didn't make an overall top ten.

Onwards. We have a race at our hill this weekend, its just a zone race and so our U12s are only doing the first day which is timed runs on SX. They have opted to miss the Sunday dual KK to train GS as the next provincial (final of 3) is in a couple of weeks (GS and SL). Here they are very aware of the ratio of training days to race days and they don't like to have too many race days. U10s will race the dual KK on sunday too. Daughter is excited, especially as unlike her last race, they will give age ribbons.

Any more updates from over the pond?

Help!!

Race kids 2012/2013

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