The 2017 - 2018 season was a break through season for one of the seriously improving and rising British racers, Yasmin Cooper. Three British National titles at the Delancey British Championships saw the British Ski Academy racer make the spectators recognise the serious amount of talent the young racer has. The recognition of these results has seen one of the new brands on the race market, Italian brand, Blossom step up and support the three event racer.
Cooper is ranked 261 in the world in Downhill, 288 in Super G and 688 in Giant Slalom. While Cooper started out as an impressive Slalom racer having developed her craft on the summer race scene as well as the winter scene, she has now got the hunger for speed. The thrill of crossing the finish line in Tignes in March 2018 and seeing her name with the number one next to it was ‘ such an incredible feeling’ she admitted. Having crashed in her first Downhill and vowed never to race Downhill again, she has, she admitted pushed herself and come back stronger and faster and is now British Downhill Champion.
“Last season went really WELL for me, it was definitely my most successful season so far. I started off the season really strong, I got a couple of podiums in Pila in the Super G races, then moved on to the English and got a podium in the Super G and Alpine Combined there. I then moved on to the British where I picked up three Overall Championship titles as well as the Overall Junior title which I am really pleased about,” Cooper explained.
Cooper is a product of the British Ski Academy and has benefited from the contacts that Programme Director, Malcolm Erskine has developed around the world. She has trained not only with the BSA programme but spent part of last season with regional teams in Canada, benefiting from their wealth of knowledge and the early season conditions. The support from Artemis was fundamental in allowing this to happen.
For the new season, Cooper has made the courageous decision to move to the new kids on the block: Blossom. The brand, based in Gordona, near Lake Como, Italy, is not just a racing brand but as Nigel Greenfield from the UK commercial agents explained: “Blossom are a hand made ski from Italy and are expanding around the world. We have not only race skis but can also offer heli-skiing to our clients to test the skis.”
Greenfield goes on to describe how the personalisation of the ski for the client can also be done: “you can see on both the ski-bitz.co.uk website and the Blossom main website (blossom.com), how the skis are made, we can alter the structure of the ski for you and also alter how the ski will perform for you.”
The move to the brand came about through her support from Ski Bitz, the UK commercial agents for Blossom who approached her to try the brand. “I am excited to use the brand,” Cooper explained “and see where it takes me.”
So what was it about Cooper that attracted Blossom to support her career? Greenfield has known Cooper for six to seven years, he admitted and has seen her “mature into a really good racer. At Blossom we were trying to organise race teams. We now have an alpine race team and a telemark race team. There was an opening for a female on the alpine race team and I put Yasmin’s credentials forward, especially after her wins in the British Championships and Blossom said ‘Yes please we want to go with Yasmin.’”
British World Cup Telemark racer, Jasmin Taylor is also on the brand.
Sales are a key element to support for racers and increasing sales is core to the promotion of the brand in the UK. Greenfield has been delighted with the take up in sales of the skis from those that have tested the skis at the tests that he has run around the country this summer.
Despite a knee injury that will see her off the slopes for the 2018 - 2019 season, Cooper has realistic ambitions in terms of where she wants to go: The World Cup and World Championships are where she is aiming for and injuries permitting has goals of racing at the World Junior Championships as well. With the strength in depth of British junior female racing at the moment, the competition for a berth on the team is fierce. “Speed is my passion now,” she continued.
“I feel super motivated and am putting everything into my training at the moment,” Cooper explained before announcing on Facebook she has “torn my ACL and will be requiring surgery to reconstruct it as soon as possible. This procedure has a minimum full recovery time of around 8 months, which means that it is more than likely that I will be unable to compete next season.”
Cooper ended her post in typical determined fashion: “I'll be back and better than ever.”