Pila Speed Races — Jazmine Butcher

After Bormio, we headed back to our base in Aosta, Italy for a speed series in Pila. Initially I planned on focusing more on training Slalom and GS, however having felt really confident in the SG races in Bormio I decided to forerun my first Downhill. It was held on a hill we regularly train on - pretty flat and rolling with a few small jumps. My first time down I took a very round line, but gradually I started to get more confident skiing more aggressively and running a straighter line. I had so much fun doing it I've decided to enter my first Downhill race at the British Championship in Tignes, France at the end of March!

After the Downhill we had two Super G races on the same hill in Pila. A lot of good speed skiers turned up for these races - the majority of the top 15 competed regularly in Europa Cups - so I ended up starting bib 94 (probably the highest start number I've ever had in a race). Compared to the SG track in Bormio, this was pretty tame with just one tricky gate over a blind roll and snowy weather reducing the visibility slightly. In the end myself, and teammates Yas and Lucinda all scored PBs! A good way to finish this block of training and races.

Once I got back to Bath to catch up on some more uni work, I found out my results from the January exams - I averaged a first and was one of the top 10 in my year in 4 out of 5 of my units! I revised hard for the exams but wasn't expecting to do so well. It was clear to me however, that I can't miss 5 weeks of skiing in the middle of race season because it had such an impact on my training; once I felt like I was starting to make progress, I'd have to leave again to go back to uni. It's frustrating for me having worked so hard for over 3 years to be healthy again, now that I finally am it's my studying that's holding me back. But on the other hand this season was really just to test if my rehab paid off and if not then I always had something to fall back on. There's not much more I can do about it now until the end of the season but it's something to bear in mind for next year.