Gloucester - Winners again! Congratulations to all skiers
Winners of the 2009 Summer Race League.
What an incredible day, despite being a man down everyone pulled out the stops and won the day for Gloucester. Gloucester A Team won the 2009 summer race league and the B Team were the highest placed B Team.
With another tremendous performance from all the racers of Gloucester Ski Club on the last of the Summer League Race we secured the overall title for 2009. Gloucester A took the shield for the first time since 2002 and Gloucester B came 8th and was the first of the B teams.
On a nice, crisp October morning at Gloucester things did not start very well; despite many sleepless nights mulling over the team selection, the Technical Director had made a schoolboy error and forgotten to inform all team members that their presence was needed resulting in the A team being one man down! There was nothing that could be done and the 29 points advantage from Midland Hawks vanished before the start of the races.
There was only one way of doing it and it was for everyone to race like they meant it! And so we did. The target for the morning session was to grasp at least 150 points and to limit the damage; we did get 150 points but Western Counties team had a smashing morning session and they managed to close the gap to only 7 points.
Every dual slalom in the afternoon session was a nail biting time for Technical Director Paolo but all the racers kept their cool and performed at their best or better. In the A team Tom, Alex and Paolo had 3 out of 3 wins and in the B team David Locke won all his races again. David is very consistent and he is going to be an invaluable member for next year’s team.
Welcome to George and Oliver who had their first race on Saturday and we hope they will become regular team members in future races.
At the end of the afternoon session we were quite sure that we had done it but only after a long wait due to some discrepancies on the calculations of points, Gloucester Ski Club officially was declared the winner of this year’s Summer League by only 1 point.
As the Summer Race League draws to a close I would like to thank Nancy, Helen and Pat for collecting money, keeping race records and taking photos. Thanks to those non-racers who turned up every month to help ‘put the racers in’, sharpen and wax skis and support and cheer on their peers. Thanks to Darren and Nick for keeping us sheltered from the rain and sun. But most of all thanks to all the skiers from Gloucester Ski Club who have skied in the SRL, whether they skied just once or in every race. All the skiers were vital members of the team and they put all their effort and skill into performing at their very best and without any one of them, we would have failed to win the title. It has been a privilege to be among such a fantastic group of kids!
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