Skiing: I feel less pressure this year after the summer's preparation
By Chemmy Alcott 
(Filed: 02/12/2005)

My first event of the season begins today, and it comes after months of preparation. Myself - and many of the women's circuit - start the ski racing season here in Lake Louise le Chateau in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. It is a place of breath-taking beauty, with a glacier around a lake. However, I call this the buffet tour when we come here, because with buffet food in the hotel three times a day, I can't walk past without taking a cookie.

This event will kick-start the season, but the bigger picture has to be the Winter Olympics in Turin early next year. This is my third season on the full tour, and right now it's pretty tough over here because there is not that much snow. They are injecting the piste with ice, which makes it a really hard surface.

Because of the lack of snow, the women's downhill ski racing will go up to the men's start, which makes our run that much longer, almost two minutes, whereas we are used to racing around 1min 40sec. Quite a distance when you're travelling at 130km an hour.

This week has involved running the hill five times a day, just cruising down and working on the line I'll take when racing starts. I don't want to peak too early. I used to ski hard and fast in preparation, which was good for my confidence, but now I know I can do it I want to map my line more carefully.

Being my third year - I've had one good season and one mediocre season, which was curtailed somewhat through niggling injuries. From now until March, I'll have a maximum of four days off in a row, so the key for the next four months is a rhythm in your life and building momentum on the slopes.

All the competitors stay here around the lake, with rivals getting acquainted again. As the lone British girl on the circuit, I spend time with Julia Mancuso, an American skier who won two bronze medals at the last world championships. I went to stay with her in Hawaii in the summer, when I was taught to kite-surf. We then biked around Mauii.

Everyone seems confident after their summer training, but no one knows yet who has the form in a race environment. Each day on the slopes is followed by recovery, into the gym for upper body work, core balance and strength maintenance. Then there is video analysis of every run, dinner and plenty of sleep.

I feel a bit less pressure this year, but that is, in many ways, down to the summer months of preparation. When we found out that the Olympic downhill in February has been 're-made' to encompass three more jumps, so there will be at least six jumps on the hill, it will mean a lot of 'airtime', which last season was one of my technical problems. I've been prone to looking like a starfish - which you don't want because it slows you.

We ended up using skidoos to get up the slopes for five jumps a day.

I had a crazy driver called Martin, who scared the life out of me every time we went up. I can confidently say that I guarantee I've had more 'airtime' than anyone else in the last six months in Argentina, with just under 300 jumps, around 6,000 metres in the air. I've got the adrenalin; now I just need to get into action.