British Champs back on hold - Ben Clatworthy, Meribel
Thursday April 1, 2010 - Email this article to a friend

Yet another 25cm of snow has once again put hold to competition at the British Land National Ski Championships in Meribel. Thursday's Downhill Training was cancelled after tireless work from the organisers.

A further heavy fall of snow, and low cloud has meant that another days competition in Meribel has had to be cancelled.

The Downhill Training run, in preparation for the race tomorrow became the latest event to fall foul of the inclement weather.

Good weather is needed for downhill with the racers reaching 120 km per hour on sections of the course.

The training run and race will now be run back to back tomorrow.

Competitors were made to slip the course 4 times to try to remove the excess snow from the race track, however fresh falling snow was settling on the course faster than it could be removed.

The ESF worked determinedly to run the race, but to no avail.

The startBritain's Chemmy Alcott said, "It's not unusual for competitors to have to slip off fresh snow from the race course, but it gets very tiring after a while."

Alcott will be hoping to defend her Downhill title in tomorrow's race.

The Technical Delegate of the races, Wilfried Bereiter, was finally forced to cancel the race at 11.30am.

Piste bashers will be out in force tonight to compact the fresh snow and make the piste safe for racing once again.

With the Downhill tomorrow it is planned to race the Super-Combined (1 run Super-G, 1 run Slalom) on Saturday to conclude the Senior Championships.

The British Junior Championships continue until Monday.

The weather forecast predicts an improvement overnight, which will hopefully give the competition a new lease of life.

See our daily pieces from The British Championships here on PlanetSKI.

Ben ClatworthyDay 1 - The weather closes in