Looking at the Trophy awarded to the winner of the Men's Downhill after the race, Roy Steudle commented that he was glad to see his name back on the trophy after the likes of Billy Major and Jack Gower had since won it. Owen Vinter took second place, just 0.38 behind Steudle with Max Laughland a surprise third. Ed Guigonnet and Elliott Bennett rounded out the top five British racers in finishing in the top ten overall.
Steudle is a class act. He has had his problems with injuries over the years and this is the second time that he has won the Downhill title at the British Championships. Since 2016, when he last won, Billy Major (twice), now focusing on scoring World Cup points in Slalom and Jack Gower (now racing for Ireland) have had their names engraved on the trophy. Steudle first raced in the Downhill at the British in 2010, in a race that saw Dave Ryding finish sixth and score 60 points in Downhill, whatever happened to him?
The coaches asked at the team captains meeting for the training runs if the racers could pick their numbers for the race, as done at many National Championships, quite rightly this was agreed to. With the top three seeds in the race all being British, Steudle, Vinter and Guigonnet, the race could have been a lottery had the computer done a random draw given the conditions.
With the men's race going first, to give them the harder, icier conditions, early start numbers were chosen with Steudle taking 5, Vinter 6 and Guigonnet asking his coach, Iain Innes, to pick an early as possible number and thus going bib 1.
The key section of the course was from the Rossignol jump down to the traverse: Get the four turns right and you carried the speed to the finish. Get them wrong and your race was ruined.
With the hard and icy conditions for the first run, Steudle was happy with his run despite "there being a little bit of a bobble coming on to the road," Steudle had felt the snow conditions caused by the snow grooming had made the course a little challenging "but that's just me, others may think differently," he added.
Owen Vinter was happy to have the speed skis back on after a season that has focussed heavily on the technical events rather than his preference, the speed events. With more racers focussing on the speed events, this must be something that programme decision makers look at for the future.
Vinter has had a season that has seen him race in the speed events at the World Juniors but with the highlights being in the Nor Am Downhill races in Lake Louise where he finished 16th and 26th. This was only his fourth Downhill of the season.
The surprise on the podium was Max Laughland. Laughland was racing in his first downhill and started with bib 29. "I just thought I would send it, it went quite well as I got the line right" he explained.
Laughland benefitted from the combination of three groups pooling their resources to provide information to their racers. The Ambition group, who Laughland trains with, the Scottish team and Iain Innes, coaching Vinter and Guigonnet, were able to share information about course conditions and provided this information to all their athletes. This certainly helped Laughland he explained.
With Guigonnet and Bennett finishing in the top ten overall and taking fourth and fifth British racers, there is a bright future in speed. Toby Jennings and Gregor Munro also produced encouraging sub 100 points results in finishing 11th and 12th, Munro from starting 27.
British Men's Downhill Championship results
Action shots from the racing are available on www.racerready.zenfolio.com