Skiing: British Schoolgirls’ Races in Flaine

In the first race of Giant Slalom, all our girls put down clean runs through the gates and Honor Bartlett finished as the youngest competitor in the top 10, winning the silver medal for her age group. It’s a discipline that we cannot train for on a short dry slope, so our girls did amazingly well to ski with such confidence. What’s more, our overall team time allowed us to qualify for the afternoon’s Parallel Slalom programme, set up as a relay with the whole team competing. We were pitted against eventual runners up in the first round and were certainly not embarrassed in coming in second to them, Beth Turner putting in a great leg for the team. The final race was a traditional slalom race, and with Honor in second overall in the combined, this was a perfect opportunity to move up. Her first blazing run saw her come back to within 0.03 seconds of the leader. But a costly mistake, valiantly corrected by climbing back up the mountain!, saw her lose time and finish in the bronze medal position.

Many thanks to Lucy Bartlett and Rob Turner for coming out to Flaine support the girls too. The team really was a credit to the school and showed the talent we have on the slopes.  Bring on more training sessions on the Ipswich Glacier on those bitter Friday evenings!