(Pic Above: Dave Riding THANKS TO ALP PRODUCTIONS)
Dave Ryding put in another impressive performance yesterday in Wengen, finishing 16th place in the World Cup Slalom, the same course where he finished 25th last season.
“I skied well today and did what I was trying to do. Today was a race where you could ski with full risk and intensity and I had to trust myself to do that. It was a race where you really had to charge. I was happy with my skiing in both runs. I got a bit unlucky with the weather in the 2nd run when it started snowing, but overall today was a good day,” said Ryding after the race, “I am now looking towards Kitzbuhel. It is going to be a toughie – lots of terrain and steep!”
It was Ryding’s third top 20 and fifth top 30 World Cup result in his past five races and he is currently joint 19th on World Cup points with Italy’s Manfred Moelgg, both on 68 points.
Although skiing well, unfortunately fellow Delancey sponsored British team member Alex Tilley didn’t qualify for the 2nd run in yesterday’s World Cup GS in Flachau, Austria finishing 45th after the first run. Teammate Cara Brown got valuable World Cup experience in the GS, finishing in 60th position.
Max Baggio and Jack Gower played a game of mix and match on the podium steps in Reiteralm over the weekend as Jack Gower won the first GS CIT race on the Saturday, with Max in 3rd. And then Baggio took top spot on Sunday, with Jack following closely behind in 2nd place.
GB Park and Pipe
Rowan Coultas was competing in the 14th Red Bull Nanshan Open in China, where he finished in 13th place. Rowan had a strong qualification result putting him comfortably in to the Finals, however high wind levels and a fresh coat of snow meant that the decision was made to cancel the Finals and take the previous day’s qualification results as the finishing list for this event on the World Snowboard Tour.
Izzy Atkin had a great start to 2016 as she took second place at the SFR Freetyle Tour stop in Val Thorens. The result means that Izzy has now secured a qualification spot for the Finals of the SFR Tour which will take place in La Clusaz in March.
This week sees the start of one of the biggest events on the European Snowboard calendar with the Laax Open taking place 18th-24th January. Qualifications are on Tuesday with Rowan Coultas, Billy Morgan and Katie Ormerod stepping up to the start gate. Jamie Nicholls and Aimee Fuller have already secured their spots in the Semi-Finals which kick off on Thursday, followed by Finals on Saturday.
British Ski Cross Team
Emily Sarsfield put in two impressive performances at the Ski Cross World Cup in Watles, Italy this weekend.
On Thursday she narrowly missed out on qualification for Saturday’s race, and was just 0.4 seconds off qualification in her first major race post injury. Then after Friday’s qualification for the second race (taking place on Sunday) was cancelled due to bad weather, the organisers took the unusual decision to run a Super Final, meaning all riders went straight through to the finals with no qualification and were seeded on World Cup Ranking. Sarsfield had a strong start and managed to stay in second position for nearly the whole race, only to be pushed down into third at the final corner. A fantastic return to World Cup action for Sarsfield.
