Callums Italian Job

The British Nordic Ski Team traveled from Scandinavia to Italy last week, to compete in a series of cross country ski races throughout central Europe. The first of these, the OPA Continental Cup, took place this weekend near the Italian village of Alta Badia, high in the Dolomite Mountains (altitude 1700m).

Although Saturday’s races were marred by illness for many of his team mates, Callum Smith (17) from Inverurie, saved the day for the British team with a storming performance around the tough high alpine route in the10k classic style race. He gained a very respectable 28th place in the Junior (U20) race from a field of 88 competitors (mainly from Italy and Germany) and earned himself 2nd place in his Under 18 age group. He is understandably delighted with this result.
Roy Young, Head Coach, noted “ This challenging course with its 188m of climbing in each 5km lap hosts several massive ascents and highly technical descents that caused many a high speed crash. Callum kept an even pace, showing great composure.”

The San Cassiano racing arena, near the Italian alpine ski resorts of Corvara and Cortina was beautifully set up and situated, offering the British team their first opportunity for high altitude racing this season. Unfortunately, most of the team were affected by a stomach bug which led to the majority having to pull out of Saturday’s races.

Roy Young summarized the weekend thus: "Callum has led the way on this, our first weekend of the central European tour. It was great to have him do so well - with so many of the team feeling ill, the weekend would have been a complete downer without him. However, the team is very supportive of one another and this will enable us to be back on form for the next weekend at St Ulrich."

The team moves to St Ulrich for more races with teams from Germany, Italy, Austria, France and the majority of mainland Europe this week
 

Story from;  http://www.bnds.org.uk/index.php?/News/callums-italian-job.html