Meribel Snow Report: 24th March 2014
French Championships race report, heavy snow in Meribel cancels races
The weather has completely changed and the endless blue skies have been replaced by fog, rain and fortunately snow. The forecast said that there would be no snow below 2000 meters but it was proved wrong as snow started falling in Meribel centre. The weather isn’t showing any signs of clearing up over the next few days but we were in need of some fresh snow and it’s looking like Meribel will be offering some excellent end of season skiing!
Unfortunately the weather conditions meant that the French Championship Ladies Super G was cancelled. The snow was just too soft which made the conditions too dangerous to race. The men managed to get in their first run around midday, delayed since 8am! However, the race was short lived as the fog and snow came in and the race was cancelled before second run. The last week has hosted the Men’s Championship and the Ladies technical races, Giant Slalom and Slalom. I knew the Giant Slalom and Slalom were going to be very tough races so I used them for practice as it is the same piste that the British Championships will be held on next week. I was starting out of the top 50 in both races which meant the course was already pretty bumpy by the time I went and combined with quite a few mistakes on my part meant that I didn’t deliver great results on either days. In the slalom I finished in 31st position and in the Giant Slalom I finished in 40th. Both races had over 70 girls at the start.
The Italian World Cup team and the French World Cup and Europa Cup team all arrived to race. I have had quite a few people ask me about how the points system in ski racing works so for any of you that are a little unsure I thought I would give you a quick explanation.
The best person in the world for each discipline has 0.00 points. You can only score 0.00 points in a World Cup race which means that only the best of the best are there competing. Everyone who starts ski racing begins with 999.99 points. As you do different races if you beat people with better points than you, your points will go down. On fisski.com you can find a biography for every single ski racer in the world and you can see their results. Once a month a new FIS list is published. When you get a personal best we call it a result. When a new FIS list comes out if you have scored a result your FIS points will decrease. You need to score two results and they take the average of the two. So at the moment in Giant Slalom I have a 26.31 and 43.36 so when the new list comes out my points will drop from 47.40 to 34.83. Your points will stay at the same for a whole season unless you score a better result. If you do not score a result then your points will be loaded; this means a percentage is added to them and they increase. The whole system sounds very complicated but really the aim is to get good enough points to make it into a World Cup race and win 0.00 points!
At the end of every season a crystal globe is awarded to an Overall Male and Female World Cup winner and one for each of the five disciplines: Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super G, Downhill and Super Combined. The same prizes are also given in Europa Cup, which is the next series down from World Cup. Last year David Ryding won the Overall Slalom title in EuropaCup. It was the first time ever that this title was won by a British Skier. This year David skied in more World Cup races but still managed to win second place in the Europa Cup standings.
I hope this clears up some of people’s questions and if you have any other questions feel free to send me a tweet @caratheskier! Now let’s just hope the weather in Meribel decides to give us a good dump of snow and then clear up for a sunny end to the season.
