Pre Season Training & Hotel Miage open Day

BSA Summer Training Camps

To register with BSA for 2016/2017 and for all pertinent information including fees and flights and booking form for the Summer and October snow camps, please download the registration/pre-season form from the website. (See website summer camps, download page, applications etc)

High Alpine training with top international coaches including Conrad Pridy, Natalia Pruska and Lynn Mill. Fitness guru Steve Cooper will join us for Cervinia as will Britain’s top male racers of the modern era: slalom wizard Alain Baxter and speed demon Martin Bell. Our Canadian coaches will support the team in Chile. What a line up! (Kit transport available at £50 per head for gear delivered to Malcolm in London by Wednesday 5 July. Kit can be stored in Aosta between camps.)

BSA Norwich Slalom Camp
29 August to 2 September 2016
Always popular induction camp at the UK’s best maintained dry slope. Booking form available at website summer camps

Hotel Miage Open Day
You are invited to a BSA open day at the Hotel Miage on Saturday 6 August. Cervinia summer camp trainees stopping over at the hotel will join BSA staff and visiting parents along with local ski clubs and dignitaries for an early evening cocktail and pizza party. We hope lots of BSA folk can attend. Invitation to follow on the BSA blog and facebook page.  https://www.facebook.com/thebritishskiacademy

Winter Season
Our winter base will be open from 03 December 2016 to 15 April 2017 with ski training and tutorial support available throughout the winter term. Many thanks to Brendan McCormick who hands over the tutorial reins to Penny McLennan after ten years of excellent service.

Our main training hills will be in Pila and Crevacol. Both resorts offer easy access from Aosta and snow-sure training pistes over 2000 metres.

Pila is one of the world’s most popular destinations for international ski racing. In 2016, from 6 January to 6 April the resort hosted 31 FIS Alpine events across all disciplines. Crevacol is a little-known gem, a quiet ski hill close to the Grand Saint Bernard tunnel, with FIS homologation in all disciplines except Downhill. Anyone who is new to the Aosta valley is in for a treat. Great snow, great pistes, and great restaurants at affordable prices.

Parents, for accommodation at our races or throughout the season, try www.pilaski.co.uk or contact info@pilabeds.co.uk  Further information, including BSA 2017 fees can be see here: www.britskiacad.org.uk

If you would like to discuss your racer's progress and any aspect of their programme, fitness conditioning or equipment, please don’t hesitate to call.

Best wishes,

Malcolm Erskine BSA programme director  + 44 (0) 7970 495533

British Ski Academy team

ASC and ISSC dates: BSA Aosta

Official announcements and programme details to follow through the usual channels.

Anglo Scottish Cup, 3/4/5 January 2017, Crevacol (ITA)
British Interschools, 20/21 March 2017, Pila (ITA)

Also in Pila, these non-seeded races as follow:

BISS/ISA champs 21/22 February 2017
British Schools Winter Games -01-08 April, 2017

Dear All

Here's a diary note from BSA on British seeding races for next season. Programme details will shortly be logged with our umbrella organisations SSE, BSS, the TD Forum, britski.org and other interested parties.

Anglo Scottish Cup, 3/4/5 January 2017, Crevacol (ITA)

The Anglo Scottish will be held in Crevacol, a quiet spot close to the Grand Saint Bernard tunnel. There are lots of hotels from Aosta centre up to the ski hill. Visiting teams and families will need to arrange personal transport. With skiing up to 2400 metres it's a relief to have the run of snow-sure race pistes this early in the winter season.

British Interschools, 20/21 March 2017, Pila (ITA)

The Interschools will take place in Pila. Visitors can lodge in resort or choose to stay in the valley and ride the gondola from Aosta centre. Since Pila will be hosting international races on 18/19 March, weekend gate training in resort will be limited. However, as an alternative we can offer full pre-Interschools gate training all weekend in the nearby resort of Crevacol. New visitors to the Aosta valley are in for a treat. Wonderful ski hills and great restaurants at affordable prices. 

http://www.lovevda.it/en
http://www.pila.it/
http://www.crevacol.it/

http://www.pilaski.co.uk
http://www.lovevda.it/en
http://www.pila.it/
http://www.crevacol.it

Further on local services/ accommodation

Carole Thorburn: I can organise accommodation, ski passes, insurance, transfers etc at both Crevacol, and Pila. I've been doing it for years!! just email me: carole@pila ski.co.uk or check out my website. www.pilaski.co.uk

Message from Phil Brown, Impulse and BISS Racing : for accommodation for the interschools, contact info@pilabeds.co.uk

MOVING TO ITALY

Dear Ski Families and Ski Friends,

The British Ski Academy is moving to Italy.

Our new base will be the Hotel Miage in Ponte Suaz, Aosta, at the foot of the Pila ski hill and close to the gondola station and motorway. This is a flagship location with outstanding training facilities and race pistes up to 2400 metres at the nearest resorts of Pila and Crevacol.

We love Les Houches and will maintain a foothold for a possible return. But rather than sit out a legal dispute with the French sports ministry, which concerns who we employ to coach our athletes, the decision had to be made to secure a new base of operations. The solution is Aosta, a beautiful and ancient city with great access to Turin and Milan airports.

Many thanks to regional minister Aurelio Marguerettaz and colleagues, and to the ski lift company and regional associations, for welcoming the BSA and our coaching team to the Aosta valley. Details of the BSA 2017 programme and race schedule will be published later this month.

What happened in France?

For twenty years the British Ski Academy has brought British youngsters to the Chamonix valley for Alpine race training and competition. The village of Les Houches has come to be considered a home from home by generations of British ski racers. Lasting memories and friendships have been forged.

In recent years, officers of the French ministry of sports have taken an adverse position towards our coaching activities in France. This despite our safety record, sporting success, excellent local relations, and an accord with representatives of the BSS to ring-fence and protect British ski racing interests. Last autumn, tribunal charges were brought against me on the basis of the BSA's employment of two (allegedly) unqualified coaches, both of whom, please note, had formerly been coach to their respective countries' national ski teams. On March 4th, in a draconian turn of events, the deputy prefect of Haute Savoie kicked the BSA out of the country by means of an administrative closure enforced by the PGHM (Pelotons de Gendarmerie de Haute Montagne), a military force charged with police duties. The cited reasons included our employment of a coach the ministry declared was unqualified to ski with children, but who in fact is highly respected within the sport and who coached the GB team at this year's world children's Alpine ski championships.

Although letters of support have been forthcoming from the British and International ski federations and from the Les Houches ski lift company and local ESF, so far we have had an unhappy time of it with French officialdom. Our legal challenge against closure was deemed non-urgent by the judge in Grenoble. When we gathered with other clubs and academies for the British Alpine ski championships in Tignes, a team of PGHM gendarmes arrived from Chamonix and spent three days interrogating coaches and parents. As for the outcome of my tribunal, faced with a request from the state prosecutor for a fine of 1500 euros, the judge in Bonneville spent three months deliberating and imposed a fine of 3000 euros. Ouch!

Our experience with the sports ministry and PGHM tallies with that of the Ski Club of Great Britain, a venerable institution that has encouraged British recreational and competitive skiing since its inception in 1903. In a statement this morning, the Ski Club's CEO used the words "misguided and inappropriate" to describe the French position. Hear, hear. Let's wish them success in their appeals to the criminal supreme court in Paris and with the European Commission.

The BSA's activities have taken place for many years in a quiet corner of the French Alps where the extra commerce was appreciated and where until now we have been made to feel welcome. As matters stand, the Etoile des Neiges will function next winter as a regular hotel for the public. Our legal appeals continue and if the BSA closure is lifted before next season this will afford us a refuge on the French side of Mont Blanc. For now, however, we are obliged to pack up our bags and say "au revoir" to the BSA's many friends in France. 

Benvenuti in Italia. Aosta here we come!

Best wishes to all,

Malcolm Erskine
British Ski Academy director