Oct 20

Written by: julievinter
10/20/2011 11:56 AM 

It snowed well into Wednesday night and the snow was lying right down into the village so we took the decision to cancel morning warm up in advance last night.  The kids were thrilled to be given a lie in.  However...



The lie in didn't quite happen as we were woken even earlier than normal by the fire alarm.  Unfortunately this might have had something to do with us (again...oops!) as a certain boy's room's electric radiator clashed with a pair of wet gloves when it turned on at 6:30am.  Well I think we can now safely say that we have fully tested the accomodations protection and alarm system and I am happy to report it is fully effective!  Although the threat of potential fire wasn't enough to move the coaches from bed, or the room in question!!  Thankfully Julie and Sharon were on the case and once we got the all clear it was back to bed for half an hour. 



On to the important stuff - skiing today was epic! Amazing snow and a change from the icy slopes we've skied all week.  There was a slight delay in starting as the ice was cleared from the lifts then when we got up there was blue sky, fresh snow (albeit a bit drifty from the wind) and lots of space to ski as the icy glacier had been coated with new snow.  It was however quite cold, about -10 but with a wind chill that made it feel much colder.  We trained on Giant Slalom skis today, a lot of freeskiing and miles were put in as well as tactics to keep warm.  Which included Andy's group racing the cable car.  This involved getting off at the top station at 3454metres, skiing down 2 T-bar runs, running across the rocks and up the chairlift to the bottom cable car station at 3032metres to get on the same cable car they rode up in. Andy was in his element freeskiing around with his group today.  My group also tried but were unsuccessful the first attempt, watching the cable car leave from the chairlift. However they were determined not to be beaten and made it the second attempt.



Eventually we did have to retreat to the cafe for a quick pick me up warm up - it had to be done, the kids toes were freezing.  Certainly worked for my group who started moving a lot more when they came back out, with active skiing and enjoying blasting through the powdery bumps.



Ally's group spent a bit of the afternoon looking at the French Europa Cup team's tracks over the rollers in the snowpark before skiing over the rolls themselves. Looked brilliant fun! Although I learned my lesson today after calling his group 'the wee ones'...eek! 7 fiesty athletes refusing to be referred to as such shouting down the radio all at once was quite daunting!

We also had a training course set which my group visited towards the end of the day when noone else was left on the 3500m training piste. We were surrounded by amazing scenery - white mountains all around and above the cloud level. The athletes are certainly pushing boundaries, we have had quite a few spectacular spills today - Rachel, Jack and Keri - but all are inspired and raring to go for their last two days of GS training.

Most of us went swimming this afternoon and power walked home in the wintry conditions that have now come to Tignes.  The lift company have certainly jumped to it and are already spraying snow on many pistes in the Espace Killy area now that the temperature has dropped.



We had a meeting after a Tartiflette dinner then an early bed for all ready for GS gate training tomorrow at 3500m!  The weather report is looking great and we're all looking forward to getting stuck into training courses tomorrow!



Night Night,



Lynn and the crew.