Ambition went down under for the second year in a row! They completed an extremely enjoyable and productive 6 week camp in New Zealand with a team that consisted of 14 athletes, 12 of which were FIS plus 3 under 16’s.
The whole team benefited from some seriously challenging training in Coronet Peak, sandwiched between US, German or Swiss World Cup teams most days. Marc Telling, programme Director explains "It is fairly intimidating but also awesome to watch and learn from the best in the world! The piste is one of the toughest we have skied on, it is steep, icy and with plenty of terrain to challenge the guys. We also took advantage of the free skiing most days after training, plenty of off-piste and attempting to do 360’s!"
The U16 team went down primarily for training, but managed to squeeze in some ANC Cup forerunning and a couple of races mid camp, which resulted in a few podium positions and a win for Max Pini! The rest of the time they were training hard under the watchful eye of Children's Team Head Coach, Rob Bullen. Telling adds: "We hope this 6 week summer training block will put them in good stead for the upcoming winter season."
It was full on for the FIS team race-wise, they were straight into the first set of races at Cardrona only 3 days after landing. These were the first FIS races for the 2001 athletes, they skied well in the most part but it was clear to see some nerves and lack of experience creeping through. Never the less, it was great to get some points on the board to set them up for the rest of the races down here.
The ANC races provided some great opportunities for the athletes, lower bibs from last years ANC points list meant that some of them could start in the top 15 from the very first race. It was also great to gain experience racing against some top level competition (Swedish women’s WC group) and to see what is possible with a bit of hard work! This opportunity was seized by many of the girls, who managed to score some very respectable results and also gain some ANC points which will help their start position in 2018.
The team dusted off the super G skis for the final week of the camp, with two great training days in Coronet Peak and Mt Hutt. However, the weather didn't play ball and the 4 super G races at Mt Hutt were sadly cancelled. "We were all pretty sad to be saying goodbye to New Zealand - 6 weeks flew by - but there’s no doubt we will be back next year for some more epic skiing, bungee jumping, sky diving and everything in between!" Telling ended with.