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Looking back to the beginning of the holiday, we had a busy week in Les Menuires with ten of our best skiers. The journey out started incredibly early on a Sunday morning but was uneventful, except for a lengthy delay once on board due to a wait for the de-icing machine to come round.
Once in resort, we met our opposition: Hurstpierpoint, Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Wycombe Abbey.
Our first day on the slopes was glorious with blue skies and fresh powder! Due to forecast bad weather later in the week, our instructor took us on a whirlwind tour of the Three Valleys: Méribel and Courchevel in the morning and up to Val Thorens in the afternoon. The students skied well and were very patient, waiting for me and Ms Porter! We enjoyed our ski-in, ski-out hotel and there was plentiful food on offer at breakfast, lunch, and supper.
Conditions were very different the following morning, with low cloud and poor visibility. This continued into the first day of racing on ski day three, with the bottom half of a particularly challenging slalom course barely visible from the top. Despite this, the Lancing skiers all put in at least one good run, with our top placed racer, Julia K (Lower Sixth), placing 4th in the Senior Girls. It later transpired that the course builders had misunderstood the instruction for a medium level youth race and set a medium level senior national standard course!
Day four continued with the Giant Slalom with Julia K again leading the way in the general classification, closely followed by Ben C (Upper Sixth). However, the fastest individual run of the day for Lancing came via Nicholas R (Fifth Form).
In the parallel team slalom, the Lancing team progressed out of their group stage to the medal races and were placed third following very close encounters with Hurst and eventual winners Wycombe Abbey.
Overall, although no individual medals were brought home, the team acquitted themselves extremely well over the week. They looked out for each other and really bonded as a team. None of the other schools’ staff could believe that they represented four different year groups and were not all already good friends before the event. Behaviour and manners were outstanding, and Ms Porter and I enjoyed the week immensely even if we struggled to keep up with the pace at times.
Simon Norris, Teacher of Chemistry