We left for The British Schoolgirl Skiing Championships in Flaine on the 26th of January. Woldingham’s team were Lucy Lintott, Lauren Morten, and myself (Alice Keyte), with our “coach” Miss Tomlinson. We were off to a good start with Miss Tomlinson having her hand cream checked for explosives and Lauren forgetting she had mini spikes (crampons) on the bottom of her shoes. When we eventually arrived British Airways managed to lose my luggage, but luckily it reappeared on the Dublin carousel!

We checked into the hotel and went to hire some skis - somehow I ended up with three pairs of skis and three pairs of boots! Our first full day was spent training for the Giant Slalom and the Slalom races. Lucy managed to launch herself over a safety net leaving her skis the other side of it and I managed to ski into a pole! That evening we needed help with our command of the French language so we asked Miss Tomlinson if she could help, the reply was, “Un petit pois!” (Yes she did say this!) Enough said!

The first day of racing soon arrived and with relief, we all successfully completed both Giant Slalom runs! The only daunting part of the experience was some schools’ customised cat suits! However, we did have fun designing our own for future Woldingham teams! In the afternoon we had the parallel slalom, which is a knockout team event. We unfortunately didn’t make it through the first round but we were up against some real professionals!

Day two brought two slalom races and yet again we all made it down! Today Miss Tomlinson was a gate judge and when we were coming down the piste all we could hear were our names being screamed from gates 28 to 30! In the afternoon we free-skied and we went straight to the top of the mountain where there was a fantastic view of Mont Blanc. Miss Tomlinson, being a Geography teacher, took 98 photos of it, from all different angles! The highlight of the free ski was the singing on the chair lift and 360° turns down the slopes.

The next morning was a difficult early start but we all had an amazing time and to top it all off we all came in the top 100! A big team thank you to Miss Tomlinson, and here’s to next year’s championships and those all-in-one Lycra race suits!  Alice Keyte