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Report and Pics from Kings
Alpine Champs from James Radmall
Sponsored by
:
 White
Stuff
The snow reports hadn't been good and the blowers were working
overtime. Due to snow conditions we were using the glacier
over in Tignes, a nice 40 minute trek across the mountain
via a rather rocky connecting piste..
Long and Sweeping (Ski GS)
At the end of the first run in the Men's Manchester looked
to have it in the bag with Nick Hendy leading, closely followed
by James Cowan, Pete Balfour (Durham) 3rd, Paul Hothersall
300ths behind with Greg Reardon 5th. In the women's there
were no real surprises, Vicky Sarsfield in first, Muriel Canton
in second and Helen Holmes in third.
Into the second run where Nick, James & Peter put in good
times to consolidate their positions, Greg skied a much better
run to recover to third overall and Paul Hothersall shaved
over 2 seconds off his first run to take first place. The
women showed a similar trend, Amanda Douglas (Durham) posting
a 2 second reduction displaced Helen for third, Muriel &
Vicky remaining 2nd & 1st respectively.
 Riding
the Ruts (Snowboard GS)
Afternoon and it was the turn of the boarders. This competition
was best of three rather than aggregate time so the boarders
really threw themselves down the course. In the women's there
was a clear-cut winner before the first rider had left the
gate Holly Notcutt (Loughborough) was there, her opponents
weren't. In the men's the times got quicker with every run.
Alex Berry (Salford) emerging
in the lead after the first run, only rider below 50s, however
the winner was to be James Rutherford (Portsmouth) with a
time of 47.04.
Free beer anyone?
Evening brought the Natives Show Love party , which of course
the officials attended, an evening that come highly recommended
to anyone who can blag a ticket. Thanks Iain for the free
beers.
Some Like it Tight (Slalom)
A rather hung over Thursday was started with the trek back
over to the glacier, 10:00 we arrived and boy was it cold.
Many of the competitors had obviously had a premonition about
the weather as attendance was down on Wednesday.
 Greg
and Paul again dominated the men's racing, Paul took the upper
hand with his first run, Greg recovering well with his second
but not quite enough to take the lead leaving Paul with a
clean sweep. The only other person close was James Cowan on
his second run, his first blighted by a sprint back up the
hill after missing a gate.
In the women's Vicky and Muriel secured the same positions
as in the GS, with Camilla Blott (Manchester) holding Amanda
out of the medals.
Some like to do it in the groups (Parallel Slalom)
The afternoon brought on the parallel slalom run in the shade
of the La Grande Motte, the temperature was at its peak, a
basking -14°C. Parallels are renowned as the competitor's
favourite and also the loudest - Manchester lead the way on
a vocal front.
One competitor stood out from the crowd, WWF's The Rock was
there, he was large and he has nipples out (no-one else was
so stupid).
The snow had softened nicely in the heat, so much so that
the poles were flying out so a new KSC rule was introduced
preventing you from touching the gate. No-one rose to the
bendiness challenge however as the gates had been re-set at
45° to the slope.
For those of you who don't know the Kings league system Mark
introduced his own variation on a magic league including some
knockout. Eleven teams started in two leagues which was whittled
down to the top two from each league for final positions -
Loughborough A, Vodka Freestyle sponsored by on-the-piste
(Plymouth in disguise), Manchester A & Birmingham. These
four battled it out amongst themselves with loud mouthed Manchester
winning, Vodka boys second and Loughborough third.
 In
the end
Prize giving was once again in Dick's Tea Bar and was very
well attended. Thanks to Iain at Natives and to Dicks for
all the prizes they gave us. Medals and bonus items were distributed
amongst the winners but there was one final prize to allocate:
Manchester walked away with the overall prize of real champagne
courtesy of Dick's Tea Bar
Special thanks to all the competitors for getting up and over
so early, to the officials for standing still all days in
temperatures as high as -14°C, to Evolution2 for the racing
and to our sponsors this year, namely: The Daily Telegraph,
Skiworld, Natives.co.uk.
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