Meribel Snow Report: 14th April 2014

Last week was filled with the end of the British Championships and my real National Championships: The Scottish Championships in Courchevel. I ended the British Champs on a high and managed to claim all the overall titles I could have won. I won the Ladies and Mens Overall, the Ladies Overall, the Junior Ladies Overall, the Under 21s Ladies Overall and the non-British Team Overall. My goal for the British was the Junior Overall so everything on top of that was a great achievement for me. I have definitely had my most successful British Championships ever winning 20 medals and 13 trophies!

After a day off, where the weather took a turn for the worst, the sun came back out for the next series of races starting on Tuesday. First up were two Slaloms. My Slalom definitely needs a lot of work and I didn’t ski well enough to make any best results but I finished first place Scot in both races. Luckily the last two races of the season were Giant Slalom which is my favourite discipline. On day one my first run wasn’t great and I was sat in fifth place overall. I was determined to really go for it second run and I knew that I had nothing to lose! I had a good second run and climbed up to third place on the podium. I made a second best result and won the Scottish Giant Slalom title. The next day I didn’t want to make the same mistake in my first run like the day before. I had a pretty messy first run and was sat in third place. As it was the last race of the season I didn’t want to finish with another bronze. I really went for it second run and despite making a mistake with the line coming down the steep I moved up into first place and had the fastest second run time of the day! This was my first ever win in a FIS race and I scored another second best result that will take my points down just a little more. It was important to try and get my points as low as possible this season as it will decide where I will start in races next season. The course gets bumpier every time someone goes down it and the lower your points the earlier on the start list you get to go!

I won the Slalom and Giant Slalom Scottish titles and the Overall and Junior Scottish Trophies. It is a very long season and the British race calendar has a huge amount of races at the end of season but I’m very happy with my performance over the last few weeks. However, this is only just the beginning and I still have a lot of work to do! I will be out of race training on snow until June now and working on my fitness. Even though the Winter season comes to a close in a few weeks the hard work never ends.

Meribel has been a great place to train and race this season. It now really feels like a home away from home. Next season I will be back here again to make the most of everything Meribel has to offer. When you drive up the valley towards Meribel the mountains are still covered in snow. The lower runs are pretty green now but the top runs are still in perfect condition. This week the temperatures are due to drop slightly that will make the snow conditions even better. The sun will still be shining so Meribel will be offering yet another picture perfect week on the slopes.