Features

It had been 20 months since I last raced following the operation on my hip.

I have been following a precise rehab programme involving a great deal of physio, increasing amounts of exercise leading to increasing amounts of cycling, rowing, and squash, to enable me to finally put on a pair of skis, but only for free skiing, no race training.

I am sure you can imagine the frustrating it all was, the process seemed to be so long and drawn out, incredibly slow. Thank goodness for emails, texts and telephone calls from, and to, my team mates, keeping me in touch with what they were up to, but that in turn was a double sided coin. Their every success brought me elation and frustration in equal amounts.

Great news came in late autumn from Dynastar agreeing to sponsor me with skis and Lange boots, along with the call for my first training camp with the rest of the guys.

November arrived and here I was back with the team training in Austria with our coach Wolfgang Grabner, it was great to be back on skis training hard again. Before Christmas I returned home to have the affects of skiing hard on my hip and the progressions of my rehab assessed at the British Olympic Medical Centre and have some more physio. They have been a huge support keeping me in check before finally giving me the go ahead to try racing, YES, I could not wait. In the mean time my skis had been sent to Lofer, the British Olympic winter training centre.

I was able to enjoy Christmas with my family, but really couldn’t wait to get back to the race scene, they knew and understood how I felt. So following New Year celebrations, I was on the plane with the team going to Lofer, I had a short time training to get used to the new equipment before racing. It all seemed to be going well, skis were great and my hip seemed fine.

The snow conditions were terrible and races were being cancelled everywhere, especially the downhills and Super Gs. The first few races were done in difficult conditions with the courses breaking up very quickly. Then on the 26th January racing FIS slalom in Elm, Switzerland, I won. Fantastic, I felt I was racing to the form I was at before my op. and that my hip was working as it should.

At the beginning of February more snow fell at last, but the warm weather returned. Again, this meant there was a lot of travelling to find races that hadn’t been cancelled, Slovenia, Italy, but my skiing was going well and I was pleased that I was able to ski as fast as I had, to the standard I had been at, more than 20 months previously.

Before long the end of the season was looming and we were off to France, Meribel, for the British Championships. First though, I took a couple of days off for more physio, as with constant racing my hip had become quite sore. The physio said there was no real problem, it was just the constant racing and hard conditions that caused the discomfort and after a couple of sessions and days rest I would be fine to continue racing.

The Championships went OK; I achieved 4th overall combined (DH, SG, GS & SL) even though I came out in the slalom, my strongest discipline. The Championships were televised by Nick Fellows for Channel 4. This had to be a great boost for British skiing. Even I got a bit part, my downhill run was featured, it was good to be able to watch myself skiing in a race from angles I had not seen before.

A couple of days later the Scots races were held in Courcheval. I came second to Noel Baxter in the slalom, and made my best FIS points result with a 21.13, a great feeling for the end of the season. Puy St Vincent was where the English races being held and where I was going to do my last races. My family were also there so it was great to see them and we were all together for the drive back home to England.

I am pretty pleased with my return to racing as I have improved all my FIS points especially my slalom, down to 27, within a shortened season for me, combined with the snow conditions we all had to endure this season.

I have recently heard that I have been re-selected to the Senior Team at Europa Cup level. Roll on next season!

I would like to thank the Ski Club of Great Britain for their continuing support, my new ski equipment sponsors Dynastar/Lange and TASS.