Last Sunday's SL on Comet resulted in some familiar faces at the top, but a big shuffling overall. More below, but first

Coming Soon to a Hill Near You

Friday training is GS both morning and afternoon. Contact Laurel in the Snow School office to sign up.
Adult gate training program is GS at both 9:30 and 1:00 pm on Saturday. The latter replaces the usual Sunday morning session. Check the board at the National chair for location.
Adult technical race training is at 9:30 Saturday and 1:00 Sunday. Meet Al at the National chair.
The first Interclub race is GS at Devil's Glen on Saturday at 1:00 pm. There may still be a couple of spots on the roster open. Contact Taylor pronto if you're interested.
Finally, GDHL is GS on Big John on Sunday at 10:00, with inspection from about 9:15 to 9:45. (This race was originally scheduled for Millennium. In a clever ploy to increase our readership, we have engaged the Race Office in discussion concerning other possible schedule changes, so stay tuned.)

Looking farther ahead, three days of speed training start on Wednesday with Jacques Reid, leading up to the GDHL Super G on 24 January. Check out the schedule for full details and contact Laurel to sign up. And not too long after that comes the Track 3 race day.

For more information about Track 3 and the Race Day, and to purchase tickets or make a donation, go to www.track3.org.

Now for Sunday's SL. Chris Barber again led the way. A bit of digging discloses that, when Chris last had a FIS licence three years ago, he was ranked just outside the top 200 world wide in men's SL. So it wasn't too surprising to see Chris put on an impressive display of short radius turning, finishing three seconds ahead of Andrew Athey, who still pleased his parents with an apparently surprising fourth place finish, and over five seconds ahead of eighth place.

But Alec Libert rebounded strongly from a slightly slow season's start, finishing second to Chris and recording the fastest second run and combined time, for those who are counting. Jesse Shepherd finished third, and treated the crowd to a half-helicopter at the finish of his second run, while Jeff Sutherland led the way for the older generation in fifth and Allan LaChance had an excellent 10th place on his return to GDHL SL.

Brittany Stainer bounced back to the top of the women's standings, overcoming a first run DNF to finish 26th overall, just 0.08 ahead of Kate Veer, while Samantha Higgins was third woman in 29th overall and first race women's winner, Jayne Clarke, was fourth and 32nd.

Doug Jarvis, Tom Caswell, Jerry Patten and Jeff Craig made big jumps compared to their rankings to finish within the top 20, while Steve Jarvis, Sarah Latimer, Alan Shaw, Duncan McEachran, Brad McMullen, Dean Beallor, Mary Riopelle, "the other" Brad Sproule, Elspeth Gaukrodger, Brian Athey, Tom Cronin, Bob Waite, Alex von Schroeter, Morley Forsyth and Cynthia Waite all improved by at least 20 spots over their respective rankings.

Forerunner times were as follows:

Forerunner 1 46.53
Forerunner 2 50.52
Forerunner 3 48.22
Forerunner 4 46.36
Forerunner 5 43.30

The last listed was Taylor Simms-Brown, who is resting in the weeds, but obviously no slouch. Those interested in forerunning future races should contact Doug Jarvis but we will be limiting the number to four per race going forward. And speaking of Mr. Jarvis, check this out:

*Better than those FIS videos any time!*

See you on Saturday!

James Mathers