Battersea skier Cara Brown claims she is riding the crest of a wave of confidence after opening her campaign at the Delancey British National Alpine Ski Championships with a silver medal on Sunday.
The Delancey British National Alpine Ski Championships are taking place in the world-class ski resort of Tignes, France from March 20 to April 1.
The super-G event opened proceedings on day one and Brown’s time of 1:26.75 minutes was enough for her to finish second behind World Cup regular Alex Tilley.
The 22-year-old and Tilley – who is one year her senior – look set to have a friendly rivalry at the top of British women’s skiing for years to come and she believes that competition can only be a good thing.
“I’m happy with my times and Tilley is an awesome skier so it was nice especially in the second run to be closer to her than I was in the first run,” said Brown.
“It’s good for British skiing to have the two of us competing. Usually there isn’t much competition in the speed events because less of the girls compete in it but this year Tilley is doing super-G and the downhill which is nice.
“That result gave me a bit of confidence back especially for the downhill which I’ve done quite a lot of this year. I’ve got quite lot of experience in it, so we’ll see how I get on.”
The Championships are the biggest event of the year for the British ski racing world and Delancey are the principal sponsor for the sixth year running.
Brown’s work in the French Alps is far from done as she attempts to add to her medal haul – and potentially overhaul Tilley – in the downhill, slalom and giant slalom later this week.
And despite a rollercoaster season which has seen her break her hand, but also regularly compete on the Europa Cup circuit, she is feeling good about her skiing.
“It’s been a pretty up-and-down season for me, probably the most up-and-down one I’ve had because they generally have been just going up for the past few years,” added Brown.
“I broke my hand in December and I’ve been doing some tougher races in the Europa Cup so it has been hard to get as good results.
“In the last couple of weeks the results have started to come in though, so it’s nice to know that all my hard work is starting to pay off. It’s a good learning curve and experience-wise this year has been great.”
To follow the progress of the Delancey British Alpine Ski Team visit www.teambss.org.uk or follow @teambss on Twitter.
As Principal Sponsor of British Ski and Snowboard, Delancey is proud to be able to provide British athletes with the support they require to win World Cup and Winter Olympic medals. For more information visit www.delancey.comwww.delancey.com
