British Championships

On Sunday a team of junior skiers and JC drove to Ruhpolding in Germany from our base in Seefeld for the British Championships.

The team consisted of Dyllan Harmer, Hamish Roberts, Nick Montgomery and Alasdair Tutt. The foremost was racing the open men’s 10km and the latter were all racing the junior race over 7.5km.

Milan City Sprint

The World Cup circuit made its way to Milan, Italy for a weekend of sprint events, and with it the Australian contingent of Esther Bottomley, Callum Watson and Phillip Bellingham (along with coaches and support crew). The races were held on a purpose-built loop of snow trucked in to the city centre, making for a flat course.

First up was Esther Bottomley in the women’s Freestyle Sprint qualification, which had a relatively small field. For Bottomley, Milan was the second sprint race of the season, and she reported feeling not quite in top form yet:

Athlete Profile: Alex Gibson

For the first of what will hopefully be a series of articles featuring various athletes on the Aus XC Team, AUSXC had a few questions to put to 17-year-old Alex Gibson, who will represent Australia along with other young athletes at the Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck. Gibson, along with team mate Lucy Glanville, will compete in this inaugural event next week in Austria. Gibson will compete in both the men’s 10km Classic on the 17th and the Freestyle Sprint event on the 19th. Gibson has been preparing for the games training and competing in the US, and took some time out leading up to Innsbruck to share a bit about himself with AUSXC:

German Cup Races

The first of a two day series of races in the German Cup at the Notschrei in the Black Forest was a sprint held on Saturday. Five Australian Team memebers contested the sprint, with Esther Bottomley joining the boys for her first race of the season. The sprint field was comprised almost entirely of German skiers (surprise), with a few Canadian skiers and a Brazilian in the mix.

Swiss Cup, Campra

The Australian Team group training in Davos, Switzerland, headed towards the Italian side to Campra for the annual Swiss Cup races there. Campra is a favourite with many skiers on the team, not least due to the hospitality (read: food) they always receive. The courses have some decent hills, and never see the sun during the winter months (due to the depth of the valley), so make for interesting skiing. The team was joined by support and wax crew Ben Sim and Fabian Mauz for the races, with the boys glad to have some splits and waxing.

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