Pendle Ski Club News

Well done to David Corr, who has been presented with the monthly coaches award for November for all his hard work at training and some great performances with his team in the last couple on Winter Race Leagues.

Well done to all the Race squad members who have represented the Club over the last 12 months, at both the Fun Races at Rossendale & our own Winter Races League and at Club National, the GBR series and at Championship level travelling up and down the country.
The club has been well represented and we have had a number of racers take regular podium positions at many of these events, with one of our club teams’ even finishing in second place at the All England Team event.
Special thanks must go to the parents who taxi them about and also are often asked to act as race officials to help these events take place.
This year has seen numbers attending race training increase, and as a result we have extended the number of awards to reflect the increase squad.
It would take too long to mention all the excellent individual performances and series wins, and we can only say that everyone has performed well and the coaches have had some difficult decisions to make this year when presenting the awards.
Development Squad
Most improved male Jake Lye Most improved female Victoria Gatty
Performance Squad
Most improved male Jonny Eaves Most improved female Louise Harrison
Most improved Master (new for this year) Shaun Witts
Beacon Award Kaigan Witts
For his work at training and team leadership at the All England Event
Skiers Skier (as voted for by the racers) Victoria Gatty
Coaches Award Declan Huppach
Declan has consistently skied above his seed point rating throughout the season and his well respected by his fellow racers at Pendle and many at other clubs throughout the country

Well done to Sam Butterworth who has been presented with the monthly coaches award for October for all his hard work at race training.

Saturday 2nd Nov. was Pendle’s 2nd Winter Race League event which saw 122 competitors braving the weather to take part. A special thank you to everyone who helped out during the day to enable the race to happen. Also thank you to the following teams/clubs for travelling to Pendle to take part – hope you all enjoyed yourselves and had fun:
Sunderland Tigers, Carlisle, Kendal Cobras, Stoke Scorpions, Sheffield Sharks, Runcorn Snowsports, Oval (Wirral), Grange School, Queens and Abbeygate.
Race results have been e-mailed to team managers and placed on Pendle Ski Club website this week.
Next race Saturday 7th December.

Coaches award for September has been awarded to Rebeca Heselton for her hard work over the summer at the Summer Race League, and her efforts at training and the summer camp at Pendle

The Club held it’s usual pre-season open day on Sunday 6th October and the final figure is in – an amazing 203 taster sessions held throughout the day! A massive thank you must go to everyone who helped make the day a great success. Thanks too, to Dave Ryding for visiting and to Victoria from Snow Sport England for all her support. It was great to get so many positive comments about our club, see so many new faces and, of course, the old. Here’s to a great season!

An action-packed morning in which we saw 99 relay races, no injuries (phew!) and friends old and new from around the north of England. A special mention for our new WRL participants – Tigers from Sunderland and Scorpions from Stoke.
Pendle had 8 teams with 26 participants and came away with 5 medal-winning teams. Congratulations to all for excellent skiing, you have made your coaches proud. In the U10’s both Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws made the podium with 1st & 3rd respectively. U13’s Demdikes took gold medal position, U19’s Nutters topped the ratings and in the U99 The Pendle Witches drove the fastest broomstick. Excellent performances from Chattoxs, Devices and Pride of Pendle were not enough for podiums this time.
You will all have noticed the new team names. Some of our older racers were tasked with re-branding the teams and decided upon Harry Potter themes for the U10’s, historic witches of Pendle Hill for the U13 & U19’s, and the Moorhouse Brewery range of Lancashire beers for the U99’s.
Check your diaries and keep November 2nd free for the next one if you can.

Saturday 21st saw 11 of our skiers making the long trek down to Norfolk ski club to compete in the British Championships and ERSA/SSE minis combi-race. Many highlights but top mentions have to go to Chris and Callum who both finished in the top 10 overall, having won their respective categories (U21 and U16 respectively.) Silverware also to Dex who finished 2nd in the U16’s giving Pendle a tremendous 1-2. Despite valiant efforts no other silverware. The unfamiliar combi format of the U10/12 race denied Josef a podium. Eleanor took an uncharacteristic tumble on the 1st run, which aggravated a previous injury and prevented her from starting the 2nd run. She assures us she will be well and racing for the 1st WRL at the start of October.

Sunday saw the 2013 Inter-regional finals take place at Norfolk ski club. Pendle provided 10 of the 14 team-members. Thanks to all who competed, and also to the support teams. Special mentions to Stefan/Andrew/Kathy for ski-prep work, Roland for marshaling, Lins & Dave for coaching, and the cheer-coven at the bottom!
Excellent solid skiing in the league stages by both teams. Unfortunately the B team (Comprising Kaigan, Morgan, Louise, Kelly, Jonny, Joe & Matt (CHF) )were narrowly defeated in 2 of their races, which denied them the right to progress to the knockout stages. Certainly not for want of trying. The A team fared better courtesy of exceptional skiing from Mikey (MSR), Francesca (CHF), Sophie (CHF), Callum Dex, Andy and Chris. They progressed to the knockout stages, having topped the leader board for their league. A nail-biting series of knock-out races saw them progress to the finals, which was to be a best of 3. The opponents were an incredibly strong Eastern Region side who had won their league in the morning. ERSA won the 1st ski-off by a fraction, so it was all down to the second race. If we were to win it would go to the 3rd race, a loss would confine us to 2nd. The tension was palpable, and many of the spectators were, literally, on the edge of their seats. However it wasn’t to be our day – an uncharacteristic, forced error from NWSF A meant that 2nd place was our final result. We must not under-estimate what an achievement this is – it is a fabulous result and with such a young team (4 of them are in U16/U18 categories) we can only dare to dream what we are still capable of

Our racers have been working hard over the summer.

Joe Dickinson (May & August), Charlotte Holmes (June) & Bradley Marlow (July) were all recognised by the coaches, for their effort and improvement, and rewarded with the monthly Coaches Award.

Congratualtions guys!!

Well done to Will Humphries for winning April’s Race Coaches Award.

Will beat off some stiff competition from the rest of those race training to take the award.

Well done once again!!