Billy Major is the 2020-2021 Europa Cup Slalom Champion. Fact. Not since 2013 has Britain had a racer that has won the Europa Cup Slalom tour and Major has had a great season on the tour with two race wins and another top ten result. Coming into the last race, he trailed German Anton Tremmel by three points: it was all or nothing for the last race.
After run one, Major was in third place, just 0.04 behind the joint leaders but crucially with Tremmel trailing him down in fifth. Laurie Taylor, also in with a chance of winning the tour title was in seventh after the first run.
Run two saw Taylor crash out and then Tremmel plummeted down the leaderboard giving Major some respite. knowing he just had to finish with a gap of four points or more over Tremmel to win the tour outright, Major took to the course. Never has watching a race on Live timing been more nerve wrenching for fans of the GB Snowsport athlete.
When he crossed the line, Major was faster on the run and combined time faster as well. the gap woulld end up being ten places and this was enough for Major to take the Tour title.
Billy Major is a quiet person. He grew up in Val Cenis and was excited to make his Europa Cup debut in the resort back in 2016. He failed to finish on both days the Europa Cup tour raced there. Two years later he headed out to the Far East to race in their series and quietly scored some impressive low twenty point results before returning to the series early the next season to race in China at Wanlong and Taiwoo.
Major has always been confident in his own ability and was happy skiing in all forms of races at the British Championships in Tignes and taking National Titles with this in Downhill and the Overall but it was at the Swiss Nationals in December 2020 where he made a real statement of intent in winning the Swiss Slalom title in Adelboden.
Clever decisions from the coaches at the British team meant that Major and Taylor missed the early World Cup races in January 2021 and returned to Val Cenis where first Taylor won and then Major won. Major then went on to win in Meiringen to really become a contender or the Tour title. Two DNF's in the next two races and Tremmel was back in the frame.
12th place in the final race in Reiteralm saw him take the tour title and now he will start just outside the top thirty on the World Cup, giving him a much better chance of making the 30 for the second run. It also means that the quota for Britain will rise to three again.
The joy this win brought the whole of the British team athletes was immense. Dave Ryding was one of the first to post his congratulations on social media and he was followed by almost all the teams and clubs in celebrating the success.
Hopefully this is the start of a successful period for British athletes across all the disciplines as success breeds success.
This season Quinn Estates Brought Major and Taylor on to their team of sponsored athletes and the owner of Quinn Estates added: "So proud to be the sponsor of this remarkable young man, an incredible achievement."
Major has put in the hard work. Never afraid to take a tough decision, he has trained outside the British arena in spending a few years training with Orsatus in France and now has two World Championships under his belt and nine World Cup starts with plenty more to come.
Major is another racer that has worked hard to achieve his success to date.