Final Mid-Week Session

Wednesday night saw the final mid-week session before the Easter break and the final chance for the skiers to score the important points for the league.

Andrew C set a training course that challenged everyone, coaches and older skiers were forced to take a high and early line to make it between the two stubby gates, whilst the younger athletes were encouraged into parallel at the end of the turn to make it through the gap.

It was Andrews’s week for setting the timed run course too and the skiers were treated to a fairly tight course with open gates and two hairpins both with tight exits. Again the majority of times were improving across the 3 runs each person got, some skiers were getting caught out on some of the gates and unable to complete the course. Josh and Finlay C were skiing neck and neck all evening with just 0.01 seconds splitting them at the end of the night (it is something like 1 diamond on the mat). Emily and Josh were improving each run and scoring all important points to help them in their league positions. Mark and Kieran were fighting it out in the middle of the pack, Mark is Mr Consistent who has attended every session and not once failed to make at least two runs, whilst Kieran skied well to pick up an important 50 points. Andrew H was skiing to his best ability and showing the improvements he has made this season and picked up a healthy 60 points. Ollie B was unfortunate to make mistakes on his 1st and 3rd run meaning no ranking for him this week but the 2nd run was a tight competition between Ollie, Andrew C and James with 0.02 seconds between the three of them.

That is the winter training programme finished for a couple of weeks but we are going to be running Wednesdays from after Easter through to just before the summer holidays.

Regards

Wednesday Night Team

Final ‘Snow Season’ Training

Tonight saw the final Sunday training session before the break for Easter. With a number of folk headed for the Alps already and others partaking in the very important day of Mother’s Day, numbers were lower than previous weeks. Those that attended were treated to spectacular weather and some unseasonal heat- was like mid-summer skiing.

Both John and James were working on individual skier drills focussing on upper body position and stability. John was using the free mat space to work on the drills whilst James was using a simple course for the youngest skiers today. Given the low numbers it was decided to mix it up a little bit compared to previous weeks and instead of head to head dual slaloms, the skiers were given 3 timed runs through a course set by John , assisted by James. The mat was very sticky and seemed to be drying out so although the times may not have shown an improvement through the 3 runs for each skier the improvements in the skiing were visible.

Fastest time for each skier are below.

• Jack M – 7.56
• Vicky R – 7.56
• Torin L – 7.69
• Murdo R- 7.83
• Racheal M- 7.94
• Keira H – 9.01
• Romily R- 9.57
• Glenn L – 9.70
• Annabel M – 10.30
• Thomas P – 11.10
• Carys H – 11.12
• Joe N – 12.63

Wednesday night sees the final session of the Winter Mid-Week League and a number of folk are needing those all important points to finish the league off nicely. Please email racing@gordonskiers.com if you plan to attend.

Regards

GDN Coaches

Walk Up, Ski Down Night

Wednesday night training this week was slightly different to previous week in the fact that the select few trainees attending on the night were made to walk up the slope by coaches Andrew and James. 5 minutes into the session whilst everyone was getting out onto the slope the poma lift took a turn for the worse and ended up broken awaiting repair by a specialist later in the week. Given we had 8 trainees plus coaches present and ready to go it was decided that we would just continue as normal and use the walk up as some added fitness. 

The theme for the night was posture and upper body stability with the focus on keeping the upper body stable to allow pressure to the skis beneath. Given the lack of uplift the runs were limited in number but we tried to ensure each run and every turn counted. A basic slalom course with three different corridors was set for some gate work before the course was reset for the timed runs. The combined times from the night plus the overall league standings are attached below.

Next Wednesday will see the final mid-week session before the Easter holidays so please come along and get those all-important final results.

Sunday- we are hopeful the lift will be repaired and ready for Sunday. We have our usual session 4.30-6.30 booked so please email racing@gordonskiers.com to book your place.

After Easter- we are currently looking at what training options we can offer for after the Easter holidays, further communication will follow in the next few days as well as a post about ‘Save the dates’ for various club events as well as summer races.

Training Report Sunday 19th March

Last night saw a smaller group of trainees for the Sunday night session with a few already abroad for various camps and races with others with other sporting commitments.

We had 18 kids spanning all the groups from Development 4 through to Performance 1 working with 3 coaches, John, Alex and Andrew. Andrew was working on matching the skis through the turn with the younger members whilst John was working on body management to be in a more dynamc posture with Alex putting the performance squads through their paces with some tic-tacs and short swings followed by some gate work.

As usual we had the ever competitive head to head races at the end through a technical course with some very tight races. It is amazing how a head to head races pushes the skiers to the next level to compete against their fellow club mates- makes for some very exciting viewing.

Wednesday training is on this week please email racing@gordonskiers.com if you haven’t already done so. Will send an email shortly to remind folk to sign up too.

Regards

GDN Coaching Team

Success for Gordon Skiers at SSSA ‘Green Mountain’ Race

Banchory Academy

This week saw two great days of racing at Braehead run by the SSSA with primary schools competing on Wednesday and Secondary on Thursday.

Gordon skiers had a strong presence at the primary event with 9 club members participating as part of their school teams. There were two courses set, 1 for boys and 1 for girls, both very similar with a small jump half way to add some variety to the event. It was a very busy event with 172 competitors all getting two runs throughout the day. All the club members skied really well and showcased the skills they have been working on over the season. In the girls category we had Daisy who skied into the top 10 to take a joint 9th place, with fellow female Gordon Skier Eva taking joint 26th in a field of 79. Over in the boy’s category we had 7 entrants with William taking the lead in rankings with a 2nd place, Nathan and Kieran took 5th and 6th with only a small margin separating them. Ruaridh, Josh and Findlay C all put in some of the best performances we have seen from them this season to take 25th, 38th and 51st out a field of 98 boys. To round off our entries in the primary event we had one of our youngest (and youngest competitor on the slope), Finlay S who before the first run decided he didn’t want to ski the jump, which was half the height of him. Finlay skied two excellent runs and was seen in the finish with smile from ear to ear. A great day for Gordon Skiers and fellow skiers from the North East.

Thursday saw another strong Gordon Skiers entry with 9 out of 120 coming from the club, a lot of the entrants don’t train with a club and just ski for their schools at these schools events. Again there were two courses with a jump located in the middle section. With less competitors and faster times than the day before the event ran smoothly and by lunchtime was ahead of schedule by an hour. In the girls event it was very tight on the results with the top 5 being split by less than 0.5seconds. Beth W took a very respectable 3rd place just ahead of Rachel B in 4th. Kathleen took 14th ahead of Ellie and Sophie who were split by 0.03 seconds to take 17th and 18th. Boys category was fierce again with just 0.6seconds splitting the top 5 , Andrew S narrowly missed out on a podium by 0.08 seconds to take 4th, with his brother Neil taking 11th. Andrew H, just in his second year of schools events, took a well-deserved 13th with Hamish completing the top 20 , 7 places behind. Again fantastic skiing by all involved and a huge well done to Banchory Academy who took 3rd place in the team category.

Gordon Skiers were represented in the event crew as well with our Race Convenor, James, taking on the duties of running the event and course setting for both days.

Photo Copyright SmugMug

Training at Alford, Sunday 19th March

Evening All,

Thank you to those that have replied about Sunday, we currently have the names below down for attending.

Jennifer
Joe
Emily
Finlay C
Flynn
Nairn
Rory
Ellie
Catriona
Torin
Glenn
Vicky
Graeme
Andrew H

We still have spaces available and need a few more to allow us to run the training session. Training will run from 4.30-6.30 at Alford on Sunday evening.

We are also hoping to run mid-week training next Wednesday as well 7-9pm at Alford again. Please email racing@gordonskiers.com to note your attendance for either or both sessions.

Kind regards

GDN Coaching Team

Training Sunday 19th March

Still no snow then!  So it is back to Alford again this Sunday.  Training will be in the same format and will run from 4.30 to 6.30.  Because our time slot is so short can we encourage everyone to arrive for 4.00 so we can be changed and ready to hit the mat at 4.30.

One of the subjects discussed at the committee meeting on Monday was the difficulties being caused by late notification that skiers will be training.  To keep costs down we try to match the number of coaches to the number of skiers but if we are only being notified late on the evening before training that skiers will be attending this whole process becomes very difficult with the head coach often having to phone round coaches at the last moment.

Can you please email racing@gordonskiers.com by Friday evening at the latest to let us know if your skiers are training on Sunday.

Many thanks.

James