As I was perched at the top of the GS course I overheard the announcer, Jon Trigell, expunge the virtues of title sponsor of Wednesday's
Natives Workers challenge in Meribel it was only a matter of time before I heard something as far fetched as the title. Combine that with the superlatives offered for
Exceptional ski 'Haute Couture skiing holidays'. WHAT! And it's no wonder that Jon is better at writing fiction than me.
Luckily such claims were soon over shadowed by a great blue sky day of racing from workers of the three valleys. Starting with a testing GS course and finishing with a shorter head to head team slalom.
Situated on the right of the Stade the GS course combined some tricky steep sections with some technical lower gates. Looking back, the course definitely favoured the skiers with many snowboarders missing gates at the top of the run.
First down the course for
Courchevel in her wee kilt was
Jen(Ski Higher) who finished the course in in a very respectable 55.42 which would eventually put her in 8th place overall after being bettered by fellow
Courchevel worker
Christine Russell.
If you looked up domination in a dictionary you would see a picture of Ski Supremes Stevie, who not only managed to win the snowboarding event but returned to the top of the course on skis and finished 4th only 3 seconds behind the winner. He wanted to do a third run wearing a pair of blades but luckily was talked out of it in case he showed up everyone even more.
Other honourable mentions should go to
Scott Dunn's area manager,
Olly Evans, who came over from Val d'Isere and, not only came 5th but managed to pop an 180 ollie between each gate. Now that's just showing off.
Steven Gay (Kaluma) finished 6th and the St Louis's handy man,
Ed (Cristal finest) finished 8th.
In the dual slalom
Courchevel didn't fair very well. Jen's team 'Simply the breast' were first to race and first to have their arses handed to them by Val Thoren. Still, in the spirit of good sportsmanship, it was great fun and I'm sure we will beat VT in March when we get to Chamonix.
Unfortunately, as always, I have to finish with a rant about the complete lack of participation from
Courchevel. With the exception of
Scott Dunn, whose day off was changed so all their staff could attend, only four people from 1850 took part in the event.
