Racing action in the Southern Hemisphere was heating up over the last few days with New Zealand hosting their National Championship series at Coronet Peak
Once again the event drew a large international crowd including Belgium, Slovakia, Austria, Russia, Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Norway, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Germany, USA, Japan, Canada, Sweden, Great Britain, Korea, Ireland and of course Australia. World Champion Ted Ligety was training on the hill and decided to drop into the Slalom events at the last minute. Fantastic opportunity for the athletes to watch the World Champion in action.
Jack and Theo just missed out on the all essential “flip” in the first run of GS coming 32ndand 33rdafter Run 1. If they had made the “flip” and come 29thand 30ththey would have been 1stand 2nd skiers in the 2nd run. A start that can make a difference of 2 seconds or more in the final result.
Day 2 the boys had a similar finish in Run 1 however Theo didn’t finish Run 2 and Jack made a few too many errors. Team mate Connor leap frogged both boys to finish an impressive 32nd.
The Slalom event as usual took it’s fair share of casualties with Jack and Connor not finishing Day 1, and Jack and Theo not finishing Day 2.
Photos above of Jack (Slalom) and Theo (Giant Slalom) in action.
New Zealand racers Adam Barwood and Piera Hudson claimed back-to-back National titles at the National Championships. Barwood and Hudson claimed the Slalom Championship titles on Tuesday, having also been crowned Giant Slalom National Champions in Sunday’s race.
In the men’s field, defending NZ champion Adam Barwood never looked in too much danger of relinquishing his title, so long as he could hold on in the tricky snow conditions. After the first run Adam was placed fifth with Willis Feasey as his closest teammate way back in 19th place.
As it was, a mistake in the bottom half of the course on run two would put an end to Feasey’s second run charge for the men’s national championship title while Barwood hung on, dropping back to eighth overall but managing to retain the men’s slalom title for another year.
The women’s leader after the first run, Hudson started 30th in run two and had to battle the ruts to get to the finish. A few mistakes on the bumpy course cost her the overall lead, finishing in sixth place overall, but taking the National Ladies’ Slalom title.
Congratulations to all the competitors and good luck to those competing in the Australia New Cup starting next week (August 20) in Mt Hotham, Victoria, Australia.
