Chill Factore hosts British Indoor Ski and Snowboard Championships and Winter Olympic Roadshow
This weekend skiers and snowboarders from around the country took to the slopes of the Chill Factore and battled it out in the Indoor British Slalom Championships and the British Skier and Boardercross Championships. The event was part of Snowsport England’s #Slide2Sochi roadshow designed to help generate interest and support for British athletes heading to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi next February.
Alongside the skiing and snowboarding action, the British Bobsleigh team were showing people the ropes of their Team GB bobsleigh, and members of the public signed the giant Slide2Sochi snowball with good luck messages as it tours the country before it eventually making its way to Sochi.
After Saturday’s action in the Indoor British Slalom Championships, Sunday saw the 2013 British Indoor Ski and Snowboard Cross Championships taking place.
With action across a huge number of ski and board categories there was a mixture of youth and experience in the field. With the event split into age groups, athletes as young as six could compare their times against experienced Europa Cup athletes.
The female snowboard category was dominated by, Maisie Potter. Maisie has been competing internationally and finished 7th at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Romania back in February of this year. Maisie’s experience showed and she won the overall female snowboard category and took home the newly created Gilling’s Cup named after British World Cup snowboard cross star Zoe Gillings, a Team GB medal contender for Sochi 2014.
In the men’s snowboard category, the winner was Kyle Wise. Kyle is a member of the British Snowboard Cross team and his skills shone through in a tough men’s category. Kyle hope’s to compete for Great Britain at the 2013 Winter Universiade in Trentino Italy. Tomski Robinson age 12 didn’t only win the kids category but was faster than all the other snowboard competitors except for the overall men, placing him the 4th fastest on the day, a promising future ahead of him.
One of the biggest categories of the day was the men’s ski section. After extremely close racing the overall winner was Sam Allen. Sam is a former alpine racer and moved to ski cross a few years ago. Sam represented Great Britain at the 2013 World Junior Ski Cross Championships and hopes to step up to Europa Cup competition this coming season. A special mention has to go to England Alpine Squad member, Will Wheeler. Will had the fastest qualifying time out of every athlete, being the only athlete to go under 15 seconds on route to winning the junior title.
The female ski was dominated by Emma Peters. At one point in qualifying Emma held the fastest qualifying time beating all of the male athletes until Sam Allen and Will Wheeler completed their second runs. Still Emma finished with the 3rd fastest time of the day and went on to win the overall female category. Emma is a member of the England Alpine Squad but has competed in the Audi Ski Cross Tour in Switzerland and will be stepping up to international ski cross this coming season.
A great weekend’s racing was had by all at the Chill Factore who so kindly hosted the event.
