The winter season stepped up another gear on the weekend with seven British skiers competing in high-class competition with the Alpine World Cup in Finland and the Norwegian season-opening races in Beitostolen.

FIS Alpine World Cup, Levi FIN – Sunday 18 November

Dave Ryding opened his World Cup slalom campaign with a credible 12th place finish in Levi on Sunday.

The 31-year-old sent down a solid first run to sit inside the top 10, around a second off the pace of the front-runners. His second run was also strong and he would have been in contention for a top five or podium position if not for losing valuable tenths in the bottom section of the course.

Laurie Taylor, 22, was also quick on the top section on his first run but an error midway down cost him valuable time and pushed him back to 49th, missing out on qualifying for the second run by 1.18s.

The Alpine World Cup shifts to North America next week where Alex Tilley will take on the giant slalom in Killington, USA and Jack Gower competes in Lake Louise, Canada.

FIS Cross Country Races, Beitostolen NOR – Friday 16 to Sunday 18 November

The British contingent had a solid outing at their first big competition of the year, bringing home some strong results in Beitostolen.

Andrew Musgrave led the British charge in Friday’s classic races, finishing seventh in the men’s 15km amongst a field laden with Olympic medallists. Andrew Young finished 31st out of 146 starters, while Annika Taylor was the leading Brit in the ladies’ 10km in 21st; Nichole Bathe was 33rd.

The British men’s trio raced well in Saturday’s sprint with all three qualifying through the prologue to the knockout races. While Musgrave and Clugnet were eliminated, Young proceeded through to the semi-finals and it took a photo finish to deny him a place in the final, finishing 10th. Taylor (41st) and Bathe (42nd) finished around four seconds away from qualifying for the top 32 in the women’s sprint.

The final day of racing saw Musgrave and Young compete in the 15km free skate. The pair again put in solid outings, with Musgrave matching his result from Friday’s classic to finish in seventh, while Young was in the top 10 throughout most of the checkpoints before finishing 11th, four seconds behind his teammate.

The Cross Country team will bypass this week’s World Cup season-opener in Finland in favour of more Norwegian racing in Gaalaa.

Other results

• Snowboarder Gabe Adams opened his season with a ninth-place finish in the FIS event at Snowpark Glacier 3000 in Switzerland. The 15-year-old scored 81.5 on his second run to qualify out of his heat, and while he couldn’t repeat that performance in the final, it was still an encouraging way to start the season.
• Ambition Racing hosted a series of CIT slalom races over the weekend at Pass Thurn in Austria. Jess Anderson scored the best British result with fourth-place on Saturday, Sarah Woodward was fifth on Saturday and eighth on Sunday while Abi Bruce, Nicole Ritchie and Angus Wills also recorded top 10 results. 

More information: Brett Moore, Marketing & Communications Manager
brett.moore@teambss.org / 077 9949 5606

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