|
|||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Report
- Croatia 2003 X
Trofej Vjeverica Manager:
Jenny Shute Trainers:
Kiro Kotev, Kirsty Gardner Team: Ch.
I Girls: Sega Fairweather,
Amanda Rennie Ch.
I Boys: Thomas Baldwin, Adam Piper Ch.
II Girls: Claire Beaton, Stephanie
Ovenden Ch.
II Boys: Salvador Glasse-Davies, James Kane, Gregory Samuels, Peter Whelan This
event has been running for ten years, but this was the first occasion it had
been registered on the calendar as a FIS race.
The organisation of the whole event was superb, with the added bonus that
it coincided with the local carnival season in Samobor (it was run by the
Samobor Ski Club). Hence the Opening
Ceremony was spectacular! We
had two training days prior to the first event, and were lucky to be able to
train alongside Janica and Ivica Kostelic (within days of their winning their
respective World Championship Slalom titles).
Sljeme
is only a short transfer time away from Zagreb (1hour max).
The mountain is quite low (altitude of the top station 1005m), but has
extremely varied terrain, and the race slope in particular is very testing. Snow
plentiful, and excellent conditions for training and racing. The
hospitality was excellent - a good hotel only 10min from the race.
Good food provided on the hill. Excellent
local transport arrangements. Two
days of training (we had our own equipment - poles, drills), then two days of
races. Very
high standard of racing - 17 nations - but not all participating nations brought
full teams - approx. 150 competitors. All British athletes gave of their best in the races, and the following were outstanding:
Great Britain was placed 8th in the Classification by nation!! On
the negative side, it was disappointing that some of the girls had problems with
time-keeping, and some seemed generally not very focussed or professional.
On the whole the boys had an altogether better attitude. Kiro
and Kirsty were fantastic both on and off the mountain - many thanks to both for
an outstanding job.
JCS/28 February 2003 |
