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Val d'Isere Snow Report: 23rd December 2013

Four races down with more to come in Xmas week and the New Year

featured in Snow report Author Cara Brown - Ski Racer, Guest Reporter Updated

This winter we're following the progress of Cara Brown a British ski racer, as she travels around the Alps competing in Slalom and Giant Slalom. This is her third Race Report and boy has she been busy!

Phew! It’s been a long week… Since my last post I’ve done four races. In the first Slalom and a Giant Slalom I scored personal best results. Then I travelled to La Plagne where I squeezed in two training days followed by two race days. The races in La Plagne were really tough… There were quite a few world cup skiers on the start list, from the French and Canadian teams and I just didn’t ski my best which pushed me pretty far down the pack.

So I headed up to Val D’Isere to watch how it’s meant to be done at the World Cup Giant Slalom. It’s always great to watch a World Cup. Even though you see ski racing more clearly on TV you don’t get the ambiance. I love to watch the best in skiing and hope that one day I’ll be doing the same thing!

I was really excited when my coach delivered the good news that there are two super combined races in Tignes on Monday! Super combined is a funny discipline as it consists of one run of SuperG and one run of Slalom. The two disciplines are so different and there’s a 50cm difference in ski length that you need to adapt to as well. Thanks to my brand new SuperG skis from Snowsport Services in Scotland I got to head up to Meribel on Saturday to give them a run. It felt funny going from my 155cm slalom skis to my 205cm SuperG skis but after a few runs I felt more at ease and actually managed to turn them.

The weather was amazing in Meribel and we got up for the first lifts so there was absolutely no one on the hill. There was plenty of snow to whizz up and down the pistes all day. It was definitely the best days skiing so far this season so I’m excited for the race on Monday!

After the races I’m taking two days off to spend Christmas with my parents in Meribel. Winding the clock back as I spent lots of fantastic Christmas’ here when I was a kid!  I’ll be back training on 26th as I’m racing in Alpe d’Huez on the 28th and 29th. There are more races in the New Year as well, on the 4th and 5th January I’m racing in Val D’Isere and then hopefully I’ll be heading over to Chamonix on the 6th for the Anglo-Scottish races. It’ll be nice to see some familiar British faces in amongst all the French skiers out here.

I feel my skiing is a bit up and down at the moment and I need to start skiing more consistently in training and in races. I’m looking forward to getting a good block of training before the New Year to start making some improvements.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and I’ll let you know what I’m up to again before the end of 2013! 

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Keep up to date with races in Val d'Isere on our events calendar.

Stats

Snow Report
  • Alt. Resort: 2000m

  • Alt. Summit: 3250m

  • Alt. High Temp.: 2000m

Location

Map of the surrounding area