European Cup, Pitztal, Austria (15-17 Dec 06)
The 2006-2007 IPC European Cup season got underway on 15-17th December 2006 at Pitztal, Austria.
The GB team had good representation at the event with six of the squad in attendance. Two of this years Paralympic Alpine squad (Russell Docker and Sean Rose) graced the slopes of Austria whilst the third member (Liz Miller) reflected across the Atlantic at her recent successful start to the season in the North American Ski Spectacular races in Breckenridge, Colorado, where she was fourth in the slalom and fifth in the giant slalom.
Limited snow conditions in Europe have hampered early season races for both the able bodied and disabled athletes. Pitztal was no different with the proposed Super-G (speed event) being swapped for a second Giant Slalom.
Slalom (Short technical event) took place on Friday 15th in sunny conditions with Sean Rose coming a creditable 9th and Russell Docker 18th after some problems in his second timed run.
The first of the Giant Slaloms on Saturday (also sunny with hard conditions in the middle of the race piste) again had Rose putting in a consistent performance with another 9th place. Docker improved on his Slalom position to finish a good 13th place, both in the top third of the entries and less than 10 seconds off the pace of winner Martin Braxenthaler.
The surprise success of the day was new entrant to the squad Jo Willougby who represnted Great Britain as a new up and coming member of ladies competitions. Willougby produced a brilliant start to her racing career with a great 2nd place.
Sunday saw the concluding race with a second GS. In snowy, soft conditions and not letting the previous day go to her head, Willougby produced a further exemplary performance coming 3rd. Rose failed to make it three times lucky and just failed to qualify - he said:
"I was flying…but overcooked it and slid out! I got up and finished but not in a quick enough time for the second run. Thats racing eh!"
However, Docker showed his experience as two time Paralympian achieving a deserved 11th place.
Liz in Breckenridge the week before, had not been idle, she produced very worthy results in both the Slalom and Giant Slalom where she was 4th and 5th respectively.
The GB team are now 9th in the European Cup Nations Rankings - compared to 24th at this time last year!
All in all a very promising start to the season which follows some intense pre-season training with Jane Stevens (Paralympic Coach from New Zealand) and coming on the back of Talented Athlete Sponsorship Scheme (TASS) and UK Sport funding.
Back to Seasons News