When there are a few racers that are in your age group that attract all the attention, it is hard to step out of their shadow and make a name for yourself. One racer that has stood out from the crowd is 17 year old Lewis Parton. From his early days on the dry slope at Telford to training with Ambition and then moving to push himself even further at Apex 2100, Parton has continually shown determination and desire to make a success of his ski racing career.
From an early age in racing in the Indoor races, Parton was fiercely keen to do well. He wanted to win. He did not always win but he gained a reputation for himself of always putting his all into the race.
Go forward nine years after his first race (at Pontypool in an Excel race) and the hard work that Parton has put in saw him finish 13th overall in the British Championship Giant Slalom and 3rd in the U18 category behind the Carrick-Smith twins and ahead of some more experienced races.
This result was not a flash in the pan but the reward for hard work, determination and pure graft, in short it was a team effort. Family support, coaching, equipment suppliers combined with the athlete.
Titles were not his aim for the season, "it was more about getting my points as low as possible," he explained while taking a break on a family holiday.
Parton has been under the guidance of the Apex 2100 head coach Sasha Rearick for some time and Rearick has spent time on the summer working on fine tuning the technique of Parton to make him a faster, safer racer.
Last season did not start for him as he would have hoped as he suffered a broken hand at the beginning of the season. The season ended "better than I anticipated," Parton explained.
"I did not have the best preseason due to injuries, I broke my thumb in preseason in a big crash," he added.
While the thumb injury hindered the start of the season by the time he kicked out of the start gate at the English Championships in February, things were going well. In Bormio he scored his second best (to that date) result in Giant Slalom, a 66 point race in the FIS GS. He also left Bormio with his second best Slalom result to that point.
By the end of the season he had scored a best in Slalom of 71 and a 50 point result in Giant Slalom at the British Championship GS. Add to this his first top ten finish in a FIS race at the NJC in Courchevel.
While he sits with 52 in GS, the luck did not extend to his Slalom results that sees him with 76 points, "I had bad opportunities," he reflected.
Parton combines his race training with studying at Apex. Apex is his home school now as he works his way through the International Baccalaureate. It is a set up that Parton feels is perfect for him.
The studying is tough and something that maybe, he feels, needs to be balanced out better: the weighing out of school to when they have big races.
With Apex having the Val di Fassa base as well that the athletes can make use of, Parton spent four weeks there focusing on racing and away from the studying environment that Tignes focuses on.
Parton spends most of the year in Tignes and while most of the people in Tignes speak English, he feels he has picked up a fair amount of French. With so many of the students at Apex coming from around the world (the have 25 different nationalities linked to the establishment), Parton is making international friendships that will last him long after his ski racing is over.
The success that Parton has achieved after his first season in FIS racing, has not gone unnoticed and Rossignol have upped their support for him this coming season.
With achievable goals in both the tech events and a desire to make a move to lower points in the speed races, Parton is keeping his options open in terms of a favourite discipline at the moment but currently feels the tech side is where he wants to stay. The next target is to qualify for Europa Cup but this is still a little way off but still achievable on the right day.
With speed training hard to arrange due to the amount of slope that needs to be closed off for safety reasons, Parton has managed to train in Cervina, Saas Fee and also in Tignes at the beginning of the season.
Parton is his own man and focusses on his own programme. Looking at what others are doing does not change things for him, he feels. The group of racers that Apex have push each other along and this is what drives him.
With support from Rossignol, Shred and Diston means that Parton his slowly being recognised. Results talk and Parton is certainly pushing in the right direction.
The young determined racer that raced on the Indoor scene at Manchester has worked hard, taken his opportunities but not taken anything for granted. He is a great example of how to drive your career.