British Ski Academy: Norwich Slalom Camp, August 2013

BSA at Norwich Snowsports Club - August 2013

After a successful summer snow camp in Zermatt, Switzerland, the British Ski Academy changed skiing surfaces from snow to dendex for their Norwich Slalom Camp at the Norfolk Snowsports Centre.

The venue held the British Artificial Championships in 2013 and hosts a number of freestyle competitions on its jump park including quarter pipe, moguls and rollers. As well as dendex - plastic bristly brushes with diamond shaped holes - there are two slopes made of snowflex - a different style of plastic matting with no holes and more like a doormat.

We took advantage of the variety of terrain and slopes this centre has by splitting each day into 5-6 sessions each with a different theme on a different area of the slope. Every morning started with a balance competition and warm up 'play' session on skis where everyone got to ski together and every afternoon we finished the day with a team dual slalom event. We had between 25 and 45 trainees throughout the week, some of whom were new to racing and some who were using the camp as a warm up for the English Championships held at Gloucester the weekend following the camp.

To keep the athletes working hard on technique, tactics and testing their diversity on a pair of skis, there were four principle BSA coaches Brad, Jutty, Stuart and Lynn who had a group each and were supported by our BSA helpers Nia, Sophie, Polly, Jaz and Megan who are all current and experienced BSA athletes themselves. Each group worked in a different area of the ski centre allowing the groups to have sole use of an area to train in. This worked really well and kept everyone busy and moving. Sessions ranged from Slalom skills and drills courses, training gates, technical freeskiing, video analysis and ski-related fitness games. Not forgetting our final days tubing session and the final afternoon of racing.

There were some serious improvements made by the trainees and we ended up awarding every athlete with a prize at the end of the week for their efforts and improvement.

The team events all worked well and it was a great way to get the trainees mixing with trainees in other groups to their own. The team spirits were always high in the afternoons!

The conditions were generally beautiful, but very hot to be kitted up in full protective race gear! None the less we had many trainees return wanting to do several more days of the camp once they'd had a taster and we had some relatively new skiers become racers by the end of the week.

We had a small group of trainees staying in care of BSA staff for the week who had travelled from afar - furthest trainee came from Geneva! They had some nice meals out and a trip to the cinema. Some of the trainees were more local to Norwich, and we were just thrilled to make this camp happen once again. BSA have ran many camps at Norwich in previous years, and we would like to thank Norfolk Ski Club for letting us return this year for a successful camp.

It was great to see Ski Bartlett along supporting the camp too who came for a whole day midweek with their mobile shop and kindly supplied prizes for our team and individual events.

After five action packed days, the camp drew to a close, thanks to everyone who came along, worked hard and made it so successful. We can't wait for our next training camp in Les Deux Alpes this October! I'll leave you with some photos from Norwich....