Natalie Beattie

The Courchevel FIS team :

Skiing in great conditions.

Many thanks to Cerro Castor.

The town of Ushuaia:

Back in the sun, after an amazing trip in Ushuaia.

I have just arrived back home from my first ski trip, after a very long journey it is nice to finallly be back in Courchevel.

I had a great time is Argentina and training was fab. As it was my first time back on the slopes since the end on the season, and that I had had knee hole key surgery on my right knee again, I found it hard at the start. I had many difficulties handling my new skis, and by the time that I was at the start on my first FIS race of the season, I only had a few days of training in my legs. So as you can imagine, the races did not go too well. I was very disappointed in myself, although I was not expecting to do much better. After the races, I put my head back into training mode and focussed mainly on improving my technique. As days went by, I was feeling a lot more confident and my times showed that I was getting better.

We did a lot more GS than SL, as the conditions where better for GS and the slopes fitted that discipline better as well.
Having completed the stage, I feel that I have progressed in GS, although I feel that in SL I have not improved as much over the last month.  Although I feel my technical skiing has improved.  I still have still got a lot of work to attain a higher level. This means work extra hard work this Autumn !

I am now off the Arbroath in Scotland to visit the family and catch up with some old friends, before going back to school on the 5^th of September. During my two weeks of skiing, I have a sports programme which I will have to do daily and when I go back to school I will then start the sports section sports programme, and try and build up on strength.

My next time on skis will be in Austria, on the 1st of October. After that I will be training in Tignes and Norway.