This weekend saw 6 Gordon skiers head down to Hillend for the Craig Mcfie Classic run by lothian Ski Racing Association. We had Andrew and Neil Simpson in the mens race and Rachel Brown, Hannah Morrison, Kathleen Ray and Ellie Green in the ladies race.
Everyone met up at Hillend on Saturday afternoon and enjoyed three hours hard training on the race course in preparation for the racing on Sunday morning whilst the support teams basked in the afternoon sun drinking endless cups of tea (although one or two were heard to mention that a large glass of wine might be preferable!).
Sunday morning saw everyone up at a seriously unsociable hour with bib collection at 07.00 and course inspection at 07.30 ready for a start at 08.15. The course on the first run was a real war of attrition with 30 gates and some difficult technical turns on the steep section that were even catching out many of the strongest racers. In the ladies race, only Kathleen managed a clean run, Hannah recovered well after a fall to complete the course, Ellie also fell on the steep top section but also completed the course. After mastering the steep section Rachel was unfortunate to straddle one of the gates in the verticale on the lower section (but we all blamed it on her father's ski preparation!).
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| Picture included at her father's request! |
Andrew also straddled a gate on the top section whilst Neil recovered from a fall to ski the rest of the course with one pole!
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| Neil minus a pole |
The second run was a much faster open course but the steep section was still catching out a number of the faster racers. Andrew, Rachel and Ellie all managed clean runs down as fore runners with good times and Hannah, Kathleen and Neil all posted good runs to register finish times, which in itself was quite an achievement given the courses set.
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| Kathleen run 1 |
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| The chairman making amends for earlier poor ski tuning! |
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| Rachel in full flow on run 2. |
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| Hannah on run 2 |
Thanks go to Andrew Campbell who provided coaching support for the skiers on both the Saturday afternoon training session and Sunday morning's races.
Results
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