Sunday November 20th Arctic Alford Sunday

Gordon Skiers are a great bunch. Real enthusiasts on every level.

Saturday we had the Introduction to Mountain Safety day with 19 attendees, 16 of them Gordon’s Members. We covered everything from snow tension on convex slopes to practical exercises with transceivers. The weather was perfect - minus 6 with blue skies and frozen ground.

Kettle and a Pick Axe - Arctic Alford Course Setting

Then today, we had Alford powder with a mat that was frozen solid. Skis were gripping and the skiing was so hot the ice was being turned to steam.

Today’s timed runs were PS1 and PS2. The course was tricky with a big right foot turn 2 gates from the finish beam. It was challenging and a few skiers weren’t too happy with the course setter. Great gains were made and the competition was fierce. Andrew and Jamie were fighting for bragging rights and Andrew managed to pull it out of the bag on his last run, taking the lead from Jamie by the tiniest of margins.

Ellie Green wasn’t feeling it for the first few runs, but once she realised her skiing was more than capable of making the turns she nailed the course and her times came tumbling down. What a smile Ellie.

Race Development 3 and 4 were doing some great work shadow skiing and looking to take parallel skiing to the next level.

Race Development 1 and 2 were pushing themselves hard with testing drills, before testing their skills in the head to heads.

As for the fitness sessions. Great to see the skiers committing to the sessions and even managing to encourage some of the parents to join in. I’m sure I even saw smiles today after fitness - of course that could just have been the cold getting to my brain!

The head to head races were very close today, but Kathleen’s team took the honours. Annabel wasn’t happy with the clean win as she wanted a final. Well done Annabel (and Kathleen) in a great team performance.

Let’s hope the cold weather continues and brings in plenty of snow.

Gary W

Today’s Timed Runs

Winning Team Leader Kathleen and Kieran bowing to the stronger team

Skier	Time
Andrew S	6.81
Jamie R	6.84
Rachel B	7.03
Neil S	7.29
Beth W	7.3
Gary W	7.6
Jack M	7.79
William L	7.93
Nathan S	8.21
Ellie G	8.35
Graeme C	8.45
Paul M	8.61
Ben W	8.72
Rachel M	8.78
Sophie R	8.84
Andrew H	8.98
Finlay C	9.16
Alex	DNF