It gets better and better for Zak Vinter, the rising British star of the new FIS racers starting out this season in FIS races. Having learnt his lesson from crashing out in the Australian National Slalom, Vinter recorded a ... super impressive 65 FIS point result in the Australian Junior Championships Slalom at Perisher. Having spent the last few weeks training on the slopes in Perisher, Vinter used the experience gained and the knowledge of the slope to put in a performance that had his coach in Australia delighted.
Edwards was thrilled for Vinter and described the conditions as "awesome" before explaining "Zak skied great today, following the footsteps of his Australian team mate Ross Peraudo. After yesterday's lesson he turned on the heat. Two solid runs from Zak today!"
Things were not quite so good for fellow Scot and Deancey U18 British Team racer Fraser Middleton who crashed out: Edwards explained: "Fraser was unlucky, just a little eager, he pushed and straddled." After the race Middleton explained that " I'm annoyed about today. I'm really happy with how I'm skiing in training, but in races I keep making small mistakes that ruin the race for me. I just need to ski the race runs like I can in training and I'll be happy. Overall it's been a good experience!" Middleton knows that it will come and will keep training hard.
The race was won by Austrian Marc Digruber with Matthias Tippelreither in second with Peraudo just four hundredths behind the second Austrian in third place after having lead after the first run.
Vinter finished 17th overall but his result was slightly overshadowed by young Australian Louis Muhlen, another 1998 year of birth, that scored a 52 point result and was the leading '98 year of birth finisher in 12th spot. Commenting on how he has felt the stint down in Australia had gone for him, Vinter said "it has been really good on the whole the training is a lot better than what we could get in Europe at this time off year. We were also really lucky with a lot of snow fall before we arrived meaning there was enough snow. The weather on the whole has actually been great especially for the races and the snow conditions were awesome. Compared to what my first races in Europe would have been like this is so much better with top guys in the race but I was only starting at worst 40 people behind them whereas in Europe I would be starting over a hundred."
With their racing programme finished, Vinter and Middleton will return home early next week.
Results
Men
Women
Picture: Zak Vinter competing at the Delancey British Children Slalom in April 2014. Credit: Racer Ready - all rights reserved