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paisleyboarder


Posts: 593
Joined: Nov 2005
Last Visited: 19:44
15th Feb 2018
Mention of Scottish Resorts on Winter Olympics
Date Posted: 10.45hrs on Thu 13 Feb 14
Just finished watching the men's ski slopestyle finals and at the end Hazel Irvine mentions she had looked at the ski scotland website and all the Scottish areas have amazing amounts of snow, so a good plug for our mountains hopefully
Ad_Hynkel


Posts: 222
Joined: Mar 2010
Last Visited: 12:28
12th Feb 2021
Re: Mention of Scottish Resorts on Winter Olympics
Date Posted: 11.03hrs on Thu 13 Feb 14
Finally...

Would be good if the BBC got a reporter up somewhere tomorrow morning. Weather's looking good for a positive piece about Scottish skiing, recent re-investment (pics of shiny Pisten Bully toys), good winters etc...
seocan


Posts: 58
Joined: Mar 2009
Last Visited: 12:35
12th Jun 2016
Re: Mention of Scottish Resorts on Winter Olympics
Date Posted: 13.04hrs on Thu 13 Feb 14
Is he trying to make up for the numbnut Nichols when he said ....

"Great Britain team-mate Jamie Nicholls, who was sixth in Saturday's men's final, said: "This is amazing, ....Jenny's been though a lot, .... We don't even have mountains in our country but this shows anyone can make it happen"
TallPaul


Posts: 67
Joined: Jan 2014
Last Visited: 08:09
27th Mar 2016
Re: Mention of Scottish Resorts on Winter Olympics
Date Posted: 13.15hrs on Thu 13 Feb 14
seocan Wrote:
Is he trying to make up for the numbnut Nichols when he said ....

"Great Britain team-mate Jamie Nicholls, who was sixth in Saturday's men's final, said: "This is amazing, ....Jenny's been though a lot, .... We don't even have mountains in our country but this shows anyone can make it happen"


He's English, he was talking about England, he was correct
mtq1000


Posts: 596
Joined: Oct 2008
Last Visited: 18:19
15th Apr 2021
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Re: Mention of Scottish Resorts on Winter Olympics
Date Posted: 13.48hrs on Thu 13 Feb 14
I think the lake district counts as mountains btw........ you can say otherwise but youd be wrong.
davidar


Posts: 68
Joined: Jan 2008
Last Visited: 15:33
11th Mar 2014
Re: Mention of Scottish Resorts on Winter Olympics
Date Posted: 15.03hrs on Thu 13 Feb 14
We dont have mountains suitable for developing a professional career....

For the olympic disciplines the UK is more along the lines of countries that develop track cyclists without a velodrome.


mtq1000


Posts: 596
Joined: Oct 2008
Last Visited: 18:19
15th Apr 2021
What's this?What's this?What's this?
Re: Mention of Scottish Resorts on Winter Olympics
Date Posted: 15.12hrs on Thu 13 Feb 14
wouldn't disagree there :-)
tim


Posts: 197
Joined: Oct 2003
Re: Mention of Scottish Resorts on Winter Olympics
Date Posted: 15.27hrs on Thu 13 Feb 14
It's not uncommon for 'elite' athletes from any sport to travel abroad to use world class facilities. You don't need world class facilities/conditions to spawn and develop talent. Sadly, and partly due to the indifference shown by UK snowsports organisations & federations towards Scotland, we have little in the way of organised talent-development here. As for developing a professional career... snowports professionals rely on sponsorship and getting sponsors is as much about your media-savvyness/appeal and 'who-you-know' as it is about talent or ability.

In any case, the mountains are fine it's the weather & variable snow conditions that makes Scotland unfavourable for having world class facilities. In the case of olympic discipline snowboardcross I would argue that, in some areas, the natural inbounds terrain in Scotland is as good as anywhere for learning the kind of board control needed to maneouvere through a SBX course at speed.
davidar


Posts: 68
Joined: Jan 2008
Last Visited: 15:33
11th Mar 2014
Re: Mention of Scottish Resorts on Winter Olympics
Date Posted: 16.29hrs on Thu 13 Feb 14
We do have places in Scotland that nurture talent from a young age - Bearsden and Garthdee.

You need to be able to have regular training multiple days/nights a week to reach any kind of level suitable for sponsorship these days... and you have to be competative on an international level by your mid-teens to stand a chance.

Our natural mountains cant provide that, but snowflex can. Jamie Nicholls went to halifax dryslope after school most nights to get the the standard that he was at 12 years old.


This is not criticising what mountain infrsatructure we have in Scotland, but the conditions, and terrain in some cases, results in areas that are better for recreational use than talent development.

Thats not to say that after the snow this year you couldnt build a decent park that would remain useable into april, may and june.


Ad_Hynkel


Posts: 222
Joined: Mar 2010
Last Visited: 12:28
12th Feb 2021
Re: Mention of Scottish Resorts on Winter Olympics
Date Posted: 16.42hrs on Thu 13 Feb 14
davidar Wrote:
We do have places in Scotland that nurture talent from a young age - Bearsden and Garthdee.
...



If I caught it right Billy Morgan mentioned Bearsden in the BBC piece today about dry slopes and fridges that followed the plug from Hazel Irvine. He sounded impressed with the skills on show there.
StevieMcK


Posts: 1160
Joined: Feb 2003
Last Visited: 13:25
29th Apr 2019
Re: Mention of Scottish Resorts on Winter Olympics
Date Posted: 10.48hrs on Fri 14 Feb 14
davidar Wrote:
We dont have mountains suitable for developing a professional career....


You hit the nail on the head.

Murray Buchan is competing in the Sochi halfpipe on Tuesday. He started young at Hillend, then moved his training to Bearsden when they got their Snowflex slope. However for the last few seasons, he has spent his winters training in Colorado and his Summers training in New Zealand.

The mountains in Scotland are never going to provide an adequate platform for any future stars to train for slopestyle or halfpipe. They're more than likely to start at slopes like Bearsden/Garthdee and possibly event Braehead, before going onto the GB junior development team, who do most of their training weeks in the Alps.

In Europe and America, the resorts do ground work to help the construction of a park early in the season. They shape table tops for landings, so when the snow arrives, it takes considerably less to build a decent park. The resorts here have their hands tied, as they can't move a single rock without the National Park or environmentalists going nuts.
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