Alcott battles through illness to
finish 11th in Sweden
Saturday
12th December
Chemmy Alcott (27, Twickenham),
Britain’s number one skier, continued her run of form today (12 December) in the
lead up to the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver (February 2010), finishing
joint 11th in the latest leg of the Audi FIS World Cup tour in Are,
Sweden.
Competing in the Giant Slalom,
Alcott produced some good, clean skiing in the first run on an unforgiving
course, however unfortunately hooked her arm in the control gate on the bottom
third of the course costing her valuable time and putting her in 14th
position. The second run was equally tough but Alcott relaxed and let her ski’s
do the work to finish in a time of 2:25.22, two seconds behind race winner Tessa
Worley (France). The result is even more impressive given that Alcott had been
up all night with sickness.
Alcott commented “I can’t believe
it, I almost pulled out of the race this morning as I was up for twenty hours
before throwing up " it’s amazing what you can do when you have
to”.
“Today was a really important result
for me, I went into the race feeling really unwell and not sure about what I
could achieve so, after the first run just skiing normally I was pretty pleased
to be lying 14th”.
“I think it was maybe being ill that
helped me relax and chill out as I didn’t expect anything as I knew how bad I
was feeling so I was quite excited by the first run. I wasn’t nervous going
into the second run but I knew that my legs didn’t have much gas in them so I
wanted to be as smooth as possible and conserve some energy for the bottom
section. I really enjoyed it, it was a really fun race and I’m really happy to
get an 11th position feeling like I did”.
“I did inspection this morning and
tried to make my decision to race or not based on what I thought I could
achieve. I would only not have raced if there was a safety issue. I felt like
even if I wasn’t on top form I wouldn’t have put myself in danger”.
“I really struggled to warm up my
muscles as every time I moved I kept feeling nauseous and then I threw up in the
start gate which was really embarrassing!”
The result is the second top fifteen
performance from Alcott within a week after her 15th place in Aspen,
Colorado last weekend. Alcott continued “Aspen really knocked my confidence
because of what happened [33rd in the Downhill] but in the end it was
because I hit a rock. However it’s really hard to justify that to people, it
seems like I’m making excuses so it has been good to come back today, even
though I’ve had one of the biggest excuses, and show that I haven’t’ been all
talk and I can ski fast”.
“I’m disappointed to have to pull
out of the tomorrows Slalom but I’ve got a big weekend in Val d’Isere next week
so I have to conserve energy. I’m looking forward to Val d’Isere as there is
always a lot of British support and we are back on the old hill which has got
some really fun terrain”.
British Alpine Ski Team Head Coach,
Mark Tilston, added “it was really good today, it was just a bit of a shame she
was sick all night. She was about 7th in both runs up until the last
split but then you could see that she was knackered on the bottom section”.
“In the first run she showed good,
solid skiing, before catching her arm in the gate which cost her quite a lot of
time, and after the way she was feeling this morning I didn’t really have much
hope for her to be honest but she did a really good job to fight against how she
was feeling. Her second run was pretty much the same, she lost everything on
the bottom section”.
“The one good thing about today was
that she produced two really solid runs which even last season she had
difficulty doing, producing a good run then a bad run, so it was good to have
two solid runs. Her splits show that before she ran out of steam she was skiing
well and skiing fast”.
The Tour continues in Val d’Isere,
France next week with the Downhill, Super Combined and Super G races, where
Alcott will be hoping to replicate her form of late.
ENDS
Results:
1st -
WORLEY Tessa
(FRA) " 2:23.22
2nd " MAZE,
Tina (SLO) " 2:23.79
3rd "
ZETTEL, Kathrin (AUT) " 2:23.91
11th "
ALCOTT, Chemmy (GBR) " 2:25.22
For further information please
contact Maggie Lawrie (maggie@snowsportgb.com) on +44 131
3355678 or +44 7771 867059.
Notes to
Editors
For further
information on the British Alpine Ski Team athletes please visit www.snowsportgb.com/alpine.
SnowsportGB is the
organisation responsible for the selection, training and management of British
Teams in all of the FIS (International Ski Federation) disciplines within its
control. These include:-
- Alpine Skiing
- Snowboard
- Freestyle
Skiing
- Nordic Skiing (includes Cross
Country)
- Telemark
Skiing
- Speed Skiing
Maggie
Lawrie I Program Co-ordinator I
Snowsport GB
Snowsport
GB, EICA, South Platt Hill, Newbridge, Edinburgh
EH28
8AA
Tel +44
131 3355678 Mob: +44 7771 867059 Fax +44 131 3332031
www.snowsportgb.com
skype - maggie.lawrie
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