Skiing is my full time occupation I live, breathe and sometimes literally eat skiing!!! Following the end of last seasons pretty snow-less winter, I’ve been training on and off the pistes. Hitting up the European glaciers and indoor resorts through the early months of the summer. Back home Chemmy Alcott and I go to the gym for some hard training, its great we live close and are able to train together. Then a break from the norm, the team got the chance to go all the way across the globe down to Chile to get some winter snow. Whilst an amazing opportunity it’s certainly not cheap!! As my program is pretty much self funded, I had to earn some cash so that I could go, that hiccough overcome I was off!

We stayed right on the piste at over 3000 metres, I could see right down into Santiago (through the smog!). The skiing there was brilliant; the snow was a bit grippier in comparison to the European white stuff. I did a few races in Chile, one of them starting directly behind the Olympic Downhill Champion from the Turin Olympics, alas that sort of performance didn’t quite rub off on me as I crashed, hard, doing around 60-70mph I had a little hmmm mishap. I didn’t quite get my line right round one of the control gates and ended up going through it, rather than round it! Falling onto my face and, as my Austrian coaches said “had a yard sale” translation; my skis came off (as they are supposed to during a big crash) my ski poles came out of my hands and my goggles dislodged and came to rest on the race course! Thankfully no long term damage, some bruises and swelling, but nothing too serious. After a few days off to recover it was back onto the proverbial horse. Crashes as I am sure you all know, come with the territory when taking part in any extreme sport, part of the buzz I think! Chile was over much too quickly and because of the hectic schedule, there isn’t really anytime to explore the surrounding area or experience the local culture whilst training or racing anywhere, not even Chile.

The winter season really got under way at the beginning of November. We had the British Ski Team official launch in Leicester Square, an amazing film that had been shot in Chile, showing the guests what we had been up to, giving an insight into life as a professional ski racer, exciting, but at the same time a bit scary, when a twelve foot me appeared on the cinema screen!! The start of the season saw so much snow, we even had to put chains on, which had turned totally orange because of course, we hadn’t needed them last year! Getting back into a racing frame of mind is quite a challenge when we haven’t been racing for a couple of months. I see a sports psychologist, and, no, there is no sofa and no guy going “oh, so you go straight down the mountain in a skin tight lycra suit at over 70mph, I can’t help you, but the psyc ward down the road can!” Instead we talk about visualising and mental preparation, that sort of thing. Armed with some new techniques, we did time trials for races in Scandinavia. The time trails were in a place called Reiteralm in Austria, they were for slalom, fastest 2 out of 3 runs added together. After winning runs 1 and 2 I decided to go all out on the 3rd and final run, just to push the envelope. In retrospect, not a good plan!! I crashed into the timing at the bottom, a few aches and pains but nothing too bad, or so I thought. Turns out I went home for a much longer Christmas break than scheduled.

I flew back to Austria on the 31st December. After a pretty subdued New Years Eve, 2008 kicked off in rather the same manner as any other day (except not at the usual 6.30!) but training as usual! Just free skiing, no gates, it was great to just be able to go and relax while skiing, something that we hardly get a chance to do. Bit of off piste as there had been a bit of new snow in Lofer recently, some jumps and just generally clowning around, taking full advantage of the rare opportunity. The locals were out in force by the afternoon so had to call it a day a bit earlier than we would have liked, but with so many people around from beginners to accomplished skiers, we ended up dodging equipment and people strewn across the piste! Since then training has been more serious, back to doing courses and the early starts so that we get the best training (when the snow is iciest). The timing set up to help simulate race conditions, the video cameras in the hands of the coaches ready for evaluation after the session is finished and one or two falls from some of the other lads, coupled with some near misses caught on video help to keep mood light! Fortunately for me I am still in one piece my skis stayed beneath me!

10th January it was back to races with a super g in a Europa Cup which went pretty well. Followed was a month of full on speed races, downhill and super g, all over Europe in places like Crans Montana, Chamonix and Sarntal in Italy where I scored 20.68 Fis points in super G. During this time I was also doing super combined races for the first time. This is one speed run followed by a slalom run and times added together. I felt I was getting there, so on the whole I was pretty pleased. But no rest for the wicked it was back to training the technical disciplines. We have just finished eight days on the trot of GS and slalom races winning the last FIS Slalom race in Jenna, Germany. A good way to finish! I am now back home for our mid-season break of four days to re-charge the batteries then it will be back out again to do more speed, before the run towards the end of the season. After the short break on the 23rd February I flew back to Lofer to start speed training for the Europa Cup races in Bulgaria, 7th and 8th March. At the beginning of that week we flew from Munich to Sofia followed by a two hour road journey to Bansko where the downhill races were taking place. We had only one training run as the other was cancelled due to fog, it went well but it was a tough course, averaging over 100kph and with a speed gun towards the bottom showing me that I was going faster than 125kph, it was not just the turns that were tricky. Some of my split times were good, others not so good, I knew the areas I was fast on and which needed re-evaluating before race day. The weather for the first race was above freezing so the course was cutting up and getting bumpy, my start number was 48, I had a good run and finished 23rd this was a great result, I had earned my first Europa Cup points. The second day was a going really well I was only 1.30 seconds slower than the winner at the final split with only about 25 seconds more, but it was not to be, I ended up coming out of the course.