James wins new skis

St Bede’s Prep School’s James Whitley recently raced at the British Inter-Schools Championship at Les Houches, a ski resort just in the shadow of Mont Blanc. The race was to be held on the very much feared Kandahar downhill run (Le Piste Verte, but soft snow conditions meant the race had to be abandoned after the first run.

From this event James travelled onto Sestriere in Italy to participate in the ’Crystal Fest‘ an event started by Sir Steve Redgrave and Crystal Holiday Group a few years ago for training and racing keen amateur(able-bodied and disabled)racers. James was invited as a representative of the Disabled Ski Team (DSUK).

During the week James won the relay race in “white out condition” on the Tuesday whilst on Wednesday all races and activities were cancelled due to a blizzard. On Thursday James was knocked out of the parallel Slalom in the semi-finals when he hit a deep rut and skied out of the gate.

The final day saw the Blue Ribbon race - the Giant Slalom. James took gold and won the race by several seconds against all-comers. Later on he was awarded a brand new pair of next season’s Salomon slalom race skis, by Sir Steve Redgrave and Ben Hunt-Davis.

Steve Redgrave also went on to win the Speed Competition which was recorded on a speed gun.