Holfilzen Hat-trick
The British Nordic Ski Team gave a shining performance at a remarkable and very cold (-15*C) weekend of Continental Cup racing at Hochfilzen, Austria. They produced notable results on each day of the 3-day event - a British first-ever event qualification, 2 personal bests and three results meeting British Olympic qualification standards.
The weekend started well for Great Britain on Friday with the first ever appearance of British cross-country skiers at quarter- final level of a Continental Cup sprint. In the sprint prologues, Posy Musgrave (23) and Sarah Young (20) from Huntly, skied themselves into the quarter final of this demanding 1.2k race.
On Saturday Andrew Young (17) Huntly, stormed home 21st in the 10k Free Technique race with his best ever FIS points - well within Olympic selection criteria.
On Sunday both Andrew Young and Fiona Hughes (19) Huddersfield, topped off the British weekend of achievement by each meeting Olympic qualification standards in their mass start classic races. .
Friday’s sprint quarterfinal was marred by both British Women being drawn to race together and then Posy Musgrave being tripped up in the first bend. She ended up spread-eagled in the snow with Sarah Young having to jump over her team mate to progress. With Posy effectively out of the race, Sarah fought hard only to come 5th and miss out on the semi-finals, with the top 3 only progressing. An encouraging start nonetheless.
On Saturday the team returned to the frozen stadium to challenge the Austrian, German, French, Italians and 25 other nations at 5 k skate for women or 10 k for men. Posy Musgrave hit another personal best with her race and Andrew Young stormed the course with an incredible 21st place amongst some of the best Under-20 year olds in the world. Not only did he underline his world ranking of 3rd Under-18, it gave him 75.6 FIS points putting him well within the British Olympic qualification standard (120 FIS points for men, 140 for women).
Mass start racing is very popular in central Europe and it makes a great spectacle as they jostle shoulder to shoulder for track space. Fiona Hughes had a battle right from the start when another girl went for the same track as she was in, but Fiona held her nerve and took the advantage. After this near crash, Fiona went on to ski a nearly flawless race which gave her a season’s best score of 129.25 FIS points, meeting the Olympic qualification criteria.
In the Junior men’s classic mass start race the British missed a massive pile up of 15 skiers which resulted in several broken poles as it happened behind them. As they left the stadium Andrew found he had ended up in the lead group and Callum Smith (17) Inverurie, only 10 seconds behind him. They maintained this position through the 1st 3 k loop. However, as the German team worked together to speed up the lead group, both British skiers had to drop back a bit. This was sensible skiing and both went on to record their best mass start results. Andrew finished 17th, again the best ranked U18 in the race and Callum came a respectable 35th out of a field of 76 skiers.
Andrew Young sums up his performance “ I had an amazing start to the race and jumped from my spot in 24th on the start grid almost straight into the top, the spaces just seemed to open up right in front of me. After the madness of the first 2k I settled down into the mid 20's with a Swiss skier. I skied with him for 2 laps of the 5 lap race before following a Polish skier for another lap. At the end of the 4th lap I got fed up with following these people and decided to catch the group in front. On the 5th lap I ticked off some more places and jumped up to 17th where I finished the race, just out sprinted. Overall it was one of my best performances.”
Roy Young (Head Coach) added "It was an amazing weekend. Most of our skiers had a least one good race and those that didn't stand out this time have progressed a lot over the week since Alta Badia.”
On the basis of the results so far this season SnowsportGB has just announced the team to go to World Junior Championships and the World U23 Championships. The World Juniors team consists of Andrew Musgrave (Oyne), Andrew Young (Huntly), Alex Standen (Huntly), Callum Smith (Inverurie), William Newman (Huntly) and Fiona Hughes (Huddersfield). The U23’s team consists of Simon Platt (Penrith) and Sarah Young (Huntly).
