Pendle Duo Dominate

British Indoor Championships
Chill Factor, Manchester
Sunday 25th April, 2010
 With snow hardly having time to defrost from ski boots, plenty of goggle marked faces on show and stories of Meribel triumphs still very much to the fore the British ski circus snapped closed its boot buckles, clicked into its bindings and headed to Manchester for the first big event of a new summer season.

With Chill Factore - Britain’s biggest and best indoor slope - hosting the event, the snow in prime racing condition and ski legs still full of Alpine training there was never going to be any need for excuses. The first championship shoot out of 2010 was upon us. Indeed with race full signs posted and a number of home nation selected athletes in attendance the eventual winners could be sure that they’d prevailed in a race loaded with both quality and depth.

The male race proved to be a two way shoot out between home racer Brad Morgan and Hemel’s Matt Thompson. Following the completion of run 1 only 0.02s separated the two England selected athletes and everything was still to fight for down Mark Vinter’s afternoon challenge. Indeed with the then fourth placed Andy Roose cranking up the pressure with an absolute beauty of a second run it was going to be interesting to see who of the two leaders would crack. In the end neither flinched, as first Thompson proved there was still room to manoeuvre with Roose’s time, posting 0.25s inside the mark and then watched as Morgan unleashed every ounce of strength out of the start gate and stretched every inch of his frame around Vinter’s course to shave Thompson’s mark by 0.2 seconds. A quite remarkable effort that truly deserved to claim victory.

In the ladies race a similar battle raged as England’s Jo Ryding and Scotland’s Alex Tilley squared up and battled it out. Leading the rest of the field by half a second after run one but only separated by 0.08s the two ladies locked horns at the business end of run 2. Tilley’s time of 13.40 – a full second quicker than any of the other ladies – looked like it might just be enough but Ryding reacted and in undercutting Tilley’s time by 0.43s Ryding retained the title she claimed 12 months earlier.

In the categories, Kerry Turnock, Caroline Powell, Florence Bell and Megan Jenkins joined Ryding and Tilley as respective winners amongst the ladies. Whilst Andrew Hjort, Eliya Beelaert-Rubin, Ashley Breese and Zak Vinter joined Morgan and Roose as winners of the males categories.

The day belonged to Brad Morgan and Jo Ryding however. Following team mate David Ryding’s Vancouver appearance in February these two Pendle trained races proved yet again the impressive depth of talent that has emerged from the North West club in recent times. With Ryding & Morgan collecting indoor National Championships we’ve witnessed another impressive chapter for a club with a proud and impressive pedigree of producing racers of the very highest quality.

If the rest of this summer lives up to the quality of this race then we’re all in for a bit of a treat.

Home Sweet Home

Snowsport England Aosta Valley Grand Prix Series
Race 1 – Norfolk Ski Centre
Sunday 2nd May, 2010
How sweet it is to sit beneath a fond father's smile,
And the caress of a mother to soothe and beguile.
Let others delight amid new pleasures to roam,
But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There is no place like home, oh, there is no place like home.

And for Norfolk racers Michael Molloy and Sophie Skipper home soil proved especially enjoyable as they swept to impressive victories in the first race of the Snowsport England’s Grand Prix Series for summer 2010.

Following the wonderful news of Aosta Valley’s sponsorship agreement for the Grand Prix Series and the All England Championships for the next 2 years, Norfolk’s magnificent artificial ski complex – the finest in the UK - was the perfect location from which to launch the 2010 series. And whilst the weather appeared to refuse to acknowledge the fact that May had arrived even those gunmetal grey skies overhead and a bitterly cold wind that raced across the start area couldn’t cool the action happening on the hill.

In the men’s race Cardiff stable mates Andrew Watson & Andrew Davies, Hemel’s Gerard Flahive and co-Norfolk racers Stuart Riches and Shaun Blyth all found themselves within 0.3 seconds after run 1 and looking to overturn Molloy’s slender first half advantage in run 2. Indeed as each racer attacked John Riedy’s 2nd run course Molloy kept his nerve at the top of the hill before blasting out of the start gate and magnificently dissecting Riedy’s 18 gate challenge to not only hang onto his slender lead but to build a buffer into the final result. Behind Molloy, Watson’s 2nd run proved good enough to claim the runners up spot in the overall rankings with first year junior Shaun Blyth claiming a very impressive 3rdoverall.

Placed 2nd after run 1 in the ladies race Sophie Skipper’s fabulous afternoon run proved decisive as 1st run leader Alice Hales and 3rd placed Caroline Powell perished whilst chasing Skipper’s challenging mark. The Telford junior 1 duo of Alexandra Bullock and Charlotte Shrimpton eventually proved Skipper’s main challengers and whilst both were the only other ladies under the 16 second mark in the afternoon run, neither could quite steal the day from the Norfolk based junior, placing 2nd & 3rd overall respectively.

In the categories Beverley Anderson, Emily Goddard, Claire Brown, Georgia Hallet and Francesca Lee joined Skipper as category winners in the ladies race whilst Robert Hales, Stuart Riches, Shaun Blyth, Ashley Breese and Nathan Breese joined Molloy in claiming category victories in the male field.

Race 2 sees the series move north from Norfolk’s lowlands to the weather carved hills of Lancashire as Pendle plays host to the nation’s finest young racers. If that hill provides half the excitement that the Norfolk one did then it’ll be an event not to be missed. Who will add their names alongside Michael Molloy and Sophie Skipper as winners in 2010?

Sunday May 30th is the date and whilst there may be no place like home, there equally are few challenges quite like Pendle Hill. If it isn’t yet in your diary then add it.