Coach Carl Carrier - Race Diary - 14 July 2012

25-30 mph at the bottom of this descent

The GBR roller-ski race series is essential to the development of athletes from the RAF, the RAF has competed at these events as long as I can remember and have always had strong results over the years at the races held from North Scotland down to the South of England. In all this time the RAF have had numerous podium places but I cannot recall an event where the RAF has dominated, that is until this past weekend at the 1 hour + 1 lap race at the Hayes cycle track in London (official results can be seen at http://www.londonnordic.org.uk) where the RAF place 6 men in the top 10 taking all the podium places.

The race itself is run on a 1 mile cycle track (hillingdon cycle track) and is a mass start race with each athlete using the fastest pair of skating skis they can get their hands on. When the leaders cross the finish line after 1 hour of racing they are told 'last lap' and then they finishing order is taken after that final lap. This year we managed 20 laps of the course (therefore averaging just under 20mph on the skis).

Group starts to split up after 55 mins of racing

Grant staying with Steve Perry from the Air Command team

A couple of laps into the race a kind of peloton normally forms and if everyone can keep with the pace this group normally stays together for most of the race until attacks start to happen towards the end of the race when someone tries to break away. This year a group of 6 formed with myself, Carl, Mathew being joined by Robert Sircus (Talented British youth biathlete), Alexander Bessarab and Emilia Romanovich (both I understand are Polish athletes with Emilia being  a National athlete). And bar a few attacks along the way the group skied together for around 50 mins until the pace started to increase with everyone getting excited about their chances of winning, I put in a big attack 2 laps out but could not keep away from the group so had to let them catch me again when I tucked in behind the lead skier which was Mat for a breather. When the last back straight came the group (now down to 5) all dug deep and started sprinting about 300m from the finish line and on the last corner I managed to creep past Mat to take the win but as the photo shows behind me was a scrap for 2nd and the top 4 finished within a couple of seconds.

A little further back Grant had a fantastic race almost staying with the RAF Air Command team athletes even though it was his first proper race and first time on rockets (our nickname for the fast skis, which do take a bit of getting used to), he place 2nd in the 16-18 category and is again showing that he is going to be a major contender for National success this winter.

A close finish with the Regiment team only being split by a Polish National athlete

A senior male 1-2-3 I believe is a first for the RAF (definitely the Regt team) at such an event and with the team now taking a few days leave before returning to Germany for camp 2 of the summer training should fill them with confidence and hunger to further improve. Per Ardua