Kieran Norris did not let the fact that he had started the first run at the back after being a late entry hinder his charge to the Anglo Welsh title in Manchester ahead of Sam Carson and Thomas Upton. Toby Case and James Alldridge rounded out the top five finishers.
Norris, a product of the Ambition Racing Team who now trains with the World Race Academy team on the FIS scene, is a four time World Cup racer and competed at the World Championships in St Moritz last season. On the first run Norris trailed Robert Trebilcock by three hundreds of a second with Sam Carson in third just under two-tenths back from Trebilcock. James Alldridge, Thomas Upton, Byron Appleton and Toby Case were all in the mix and separated by 0.20 in places four to seven.
When there is little to choose between the racers, the smallest of mistakes can be costly and it was Toby Case that made the biggest jump up amongst the challengers. Case, an Ambition trainee who has spent the summer focusing on training in Europe rather than heading south to New Zealand and other climes, took the race lead and then had to see how he would fare.
Appleton had not raced at all since the corresponding races last year yet proved that he still has the ability to race at the top end of the sport. After the race he explained that it was his drive that was missing and so had taken time out of the sport.
Thomas Upton was next down and he posted a faster time than Case to take an almost half second lead in the race over the rest of the field pushing Case down to second with four to go.
With the fine margins between racers, Alldridge, in one of his final races before moving up to the Masters age group for the 2018 summer season, was determined to fight his way onto the podium yet small mistakes and maybe trying a little too hard saw him drop behind Case with three to go. The tension was rising.
Sam Carson was next down. Carson had scored some impressive FIS results in Tiffindell earlier this summer, the best being a 77 point result and he posted a second run time that put those in the finish to shame as he went three quarters of a second faster on the run than anyway had been up till then to grab the lead.
With the experience of how the snow was after lots of racers had been down the course from the first run, Kieran Norris was able to attack and he too went fast. Norris edged out Carson by two-tenths to take the race lead with just Trebilcock of the top thirty finishers from the first run to go.
Trebilcock on his day has scored great FIS point results and after starting racing at a late stage, he did not seriously take to racing until he had finished school and is only 22 now. Another racer with experience of racing at Tiffindell in South Africa, Trebilcock had returned home early after a bout of bronchitis and was still feeling the after effects of it. The energy required even for a short run was a little too much and he crashed out on the second run, coming out half way down the course.
So the Anglo Welsh title went to Ireland’s Norris with Carson taking a solid second and Thomas Upton taking his second podium result of the summer.
The age group results went to Jack Upton (Under 14, 12th Overall); Toby Case (Under 16, 4th Overall); Thomas Upton (Under 18, 3rd Overall), Sam Carson (Under 21, 2nd Overall); Kieran Norris (Senior, Race Winner) and Alex Molliex (Masters, 11th Overall).
Results (Main race)
Results (Under 10 and Under 12)
Pictures from the racing will be on www.racerready.zenfolio.com