Over the winter the decision was made to keep the second Elite race training session running on a Wednesday night. The ability to train twice a week has been incredibly valuable for our stronger racers and is reflected in the results achieved this year, so thank you very much for the extra slope time. We have been extremely competitive at every level this year and had a lot of fun along the way – the race team continues to go from strength to strength. Here are the highlights with apologies to everyone we can’t mention individually.
SNOW SEASON 22/23
Eight of our racers competed in various Childrens Alpine races this winter season supported by external snow clubs, but building on strong foundations laid at the club.
Delighted to report that Isaac Cheongvee was the overall U12 boy Champion at both the English Alpine Championships in Bormio and the British Championships in Tignes with wins and podiums in every discipline – an amazing achievement. Other notable results were a silver in the U14 girls Super G for Antonia Watson and podiums for Fred Croft and Betsy Cheongvee all at the English Alpine Championships
Jake Dade was selected for the Team GB ski cross team at the European Youth Olympic Festival in held in Fruili Venezia Giulia in January.
DRYSLOPE SEASON 22/23
Dryslope Ambassadors
We started the season with the appointment of four Norfolk Dryslope Ambassadors who are ranked top three English Skiers for their age group.
Joseph Thompson and Joel Marsh (U21 Boys)
Toby Watson (U18 Boys)
George Snelling (U16 Boys)
Thanks to his wins last year Joseph Thompson started the season as the zero point skier (i.e. best male skier in the country). This is a huge achievement that has inspired all our girls and boys
ERSA regional races
84 Norfolk racers competed in the six regional ERSA races this season. We retained the overall club Trophy, despite a strong challenge from Hemel
Alex Haddingham was the male overall ERSA Champion
Elliot Walker was the U12 boys overall ERSA Champion
The ERSAs are our entry level races and so many new skiers stepped up to compete in them this year. We are particularly excited about the number of minis getting involved which bodes extremely well for the future of the race team and the work done at Junior Club and Freestyle is absolutely key here.
Club Nationals
These are the entry level national races and 29 race team members travelled to eight Club Nationals outside Norfolk with lots more joining them for our own Club National.
We had numerous age group champions both girls and boys and thanks to this strong showing Norfolk won the Calvert Cup as the most successful club at Club Nationals, our first win since 2009. Sixteen different skiers contributed times to this achievement and while this was very much an all team effort the contributions of Izzy Lincoln and Antonia Watson as committed and strong girl skiers was particularly decisive. We hope to build on this next year.
Indoor GBRs
A small but committed team of 12 skiers attended the five Indoor GBRs in Manchester scoring valuable age group points for Norfolk. This resulted in a 5th place overall club in the GBR series and two skiers with Age Group Series podiums. All very impressive considering our skiers do not have the opportunity to train on snow.
Outdoor GBRs
A very pleasing number of skiers made the journeys to Llandudno and Chatham for the Outdoor GBRs. As a club we finished 2nd overall without attending the Scottish GBR (the only club in the top nine not to score points at this 5th Event). Six of our skiers secured GBR Age Group Series podiums
Championships – oh boy have we travelled!
We had skiers at every single championship race this season (indoor and out) and secured age group podiums at all of them. There were overall championship podiums for
Toby Watson 3rd Overall English Indoor Championships and 3rd Overall Scottish Outdoor Championships
Joseph Thompson 3rd Overall All England
Izzy Lincoln 2nd Overall All England
Joel Marsh All England Champion
Elliot Walker leaves the mini division this year as both U12 All England and U12 British Champion
Indoors
12 Skiers competed at the English Indoor Championships in July and we took 10 skiers to the Welsh And British Championships in Manchester in August
Outdoors
Izzy Lincoln was our sole representative at the Welsh Open in Llandudno
Two skiers went to Hillend for the Scottish Championships
11 skiers went to Pontypool for the British Championships last weekend
37 Norfolk skiers competed at the All England Championships held here at Norfolk over the bank holiday, where there was a particularly strong showing from our boys who won five of the eight titles available and made up 14 of the top 25 skiers (including 5 of the top 6).
Individual National Champions of which we have eight
Joel Marsh is the All England Boys Overall Champion and U21 Boys Champion
Elliot Walker is the All England U12 Boys Champion and British U12 boys Champion
Izzy Lincoln is the All England U21 Girls Champion
George Snelling is the All England U16 Boys Champion
Isaac Cheongvee is the All England U14 Boys Champion
Scott Cannon is the All England Male Masters Champion
Melissa Sampson is the All England Female Masters Champion
Nick Watson is the English and British Indoor Masters Champion
Finally Norfolk retained the All England inter club dual slalom title with a dominant performance from Joseph Thompson, Toby Watson, Izzy Lincoln and Joel Marsh. Our minis team was once again 2nd. We were able to field two mini teams and four very strong open teams all from skiers on less than 100 seed points (with four of our girls and 14 boys skiing on less than 100 seed points)
So all in all a phenomenal season certainly our strongest since COVID. We have a committed coaching group and a strong team of racers who work hard at improving at every level as well as dedicated and supportive parents and a pipeline of new talent coming along. The achievements of our older racers are inspiring and several of them are junior leaders passing on their enthusiasm. Last but not least we have been visited on several occasions by former Norfolk skier Will Feneley who continues to compete in moguls at the highest level and this year represented Team GB at the Beijing Olympics.
We will continue to report our results and upcoming opportunities on our Facebook page Racing at Norfolk Snowsports Club so do follow us – we are already excited to see what next year will bring for our racers.