Joe proves himself as nation's top skiing hope

Skiing prodigy Joe Christey continued to prove he's one of the sport's brightest hopes with a silver medal in the English Alpine Championships slalom.
Joe ChristeyJoe Christey
Joe Christey

Christey, who attends Kinross High School, is just 15 years old but this latest result reinforces his position as one of Britain’s best juniors.

The Championships are being held in Bormio, Italy, for the 11th time and the youngsters have been in action since Sunday, competing in the Super G and Wednesday’s slalom, sponsored by Rossignol.

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And Christey, who races for the British Ski Academy, took silver with an overall time of 97.41 seconds, just 0.35s behind first-placed Thomas Butterworth.

“I’m feeling good considering I’ve just not done as much skiing as I did last year, I’m skiing pretty well for how much training I’ve done,” he said.

“This year I’ve really had to focus much more on school and stuff, I wasn’t really falling behind but I’m making sure I don’t fall behind in future, so skiing has had to take a backseat a little bit.

“The hill here is really nice, great snow, the first course was pretty much the same as the second course in the slalom, really grippy and it was well-set. It let me attack it, which is my style, so I really enjoyed that.

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“I didn’t expect to do this well, I knew that I was consistent enough to get a result like this but I just wasn’t sure.”

The slalom was Christey’s third event of the Championship, the Scot finishing fourth in Sunday’s Super G and then ninth in the second Super G on Monday.

“It’s been a bit frustrating at times but in the first Super G I came fourth with a mistake at the end, and then the second Super G I didn’t attack it as much as I could, so I’ve worked on that,” he added.

Inspired by the performances at the 2018 English Alpine Championships and PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Games? Find out more on how to get involved in skiing and snowboarding through Snowsport England’s national grassroots participation campaign at www.goskigoboard.org.uk

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