All England Champs 2011

All England Championships
Norfolk Ski Centre
3rd September, 2011

With the hill at Norfolk ’s magnificent artificial ski facility absolutely swamped with racers looking for the perfect line during a hectic course inspection period it was clear that this was no ordinary day.
Indeed with almost 200 athletes primed to do battle down a brace of championship testers on a bright September Saturday, even as early as course inspection it was clear that the athletes were going to provide the lucky spectators with a battle royale. Snowsport England ’s premier summer event, the All England Championships, was up for grabs and a substantial number of racers had genuine designs on lifting the most prestigious title in summer racing.

The ladies event was a truly hard fought affair as Sega Fairweather’s return to dendix racing coincided with a rare 2011 start for Charlotte Davies and the efforts in-form trio Charlotte Gould, and Sarah Lambden. Indeed at the half way stage of the competition only 0.11 seconds separated the aforementioned racers the afternoon run promised to be an explosive affair. No breathing space, no room for error and no time in hand to play safe – it was a 13 second blast to the finish line. Suddenly the race had evolved into the All (or nothing) England.

Indeed if that wasn’t pressure enough Alice Hales turned the screw all that tighter with a fantastic 2nd run as the top four watched and waited. Gould was next to play her hand – and what a hand – cutting Hales time by half a second, heaping immense pressure on her rivals in the start and propelling herself into genuine overall contention. Could anyone better that?
Certainly both Davies and Lambden set out looking to get inside Gould’s time but mistakes for both ended their challenges and only Sega Fairweather could deny Gould. Just shy of fourteen and a half seconds later it was all over and the returning Fairweather had both denied Gould and opened up an impressive half second winning margin.

In the categories Ella Ward captured the chi 1 title, finishing ahead of Alexandra Lillywhite and Millie Jackson. In chi 2 Annie Usher squeezed out Francesca Lee for victory with Jessica Spanton in 3rd. Sophie Skipper, an impressive 4th overall, did enough to push Sophie Ogden into 5th overall and 2nd in category with Georgia Hallet in 3rd. In Jun 2 Charlotte Gould claimed the honours in front of Alice Hales and Charlotte Shrimpton. Fern Barker and Ella Slater claimed the senior category podium places behind Sega Fairweather whilst Vivien Hanson edged out Melissa Sampson in the Masters category.

The male race proved to be an altogether different affair however as Michael Molloy learned from and then capitalised upon the mistakes of his counterparts to open up an unassailable first run lead and then proceed to demolish what was left on run 2. Indeed with substantial numbers of the male racers failing to learn from each other’s failures and eliminating themselves with suicidal race lines Molloy will rarely have had it go quite so straight forward. Granted James Greenwood and Andrew Davies combined their speed and talent with experience and intelligence to mount credible challenges to the home racer but they were amongst a genuine minority on a frustrating day for male racing.

In the categories Declan Huppach claimed the honours in chi 1 with William Feneley and Thomas Rascagneres in 2nd & 3rd. An impressive 13th overall from Jordan Fellows proved too good for the rest of chi 2 category with Thomas Richardson and William Wheeler joining him on the podium. In the junior 1 category Christopher Corr’s excellent 9th overall was enough to secure victory although James Gibb and Matthew Martin pushed him close. James Mozol joined Michael Molloy & Andrew Davies on the junior 2 podium whilst Harry Hornsby and Andrew Leeson joined James Greenwood in the senior category. Joint 14th overall was plenty enough to secure the masters win for Rob Hales with Andrew Hjort and Paul Bunton claiming the minor podium places.

In the minis event scheduled for the first time between Saturday’s first run victories from Olivia Mitchell and Toby Case identified themselves as future racers to keep an eye upon. There were podium positions for Lauren Vale, Georgia Key in the girls event and from Aaron Troung and Oliver Wekks in the boys race.

The day belonged to Michael Molloy and Sega Fairweather however. Not since 2004 had Fairweather contested the All England Championships but seven years later she raised the bar and again proved that was still very much the lady to beat.