Chilling at the beach the day after Aberdeen comp!

Ok guys so what an epic start to the year it has been!! comps galore and some fantastic results from our riders and sliders!!

1st up we had BUISC Scotland which was the qualifying for BUISC Finals in leeds! Needed two mini buses to get everyone through to X-scape in Glasgow! First up we had the womens ski slalom where Carla Gardener came 2nd ( i think ) and the almighty Kirsty Hope qualified for the finals too. Mens Ski slalom resulted in Jas Bruce winning and Calum Henderson coming 4th so both got places in the finals.

Tom Akass won the Snowboard Slalom with Euan Taylor get a well earned top 5! Paul Norman came 15th to save a place in the finals too. With Matt “sparrow” Higginson still feeling the pain from a broken Leg sustained in Alpe D’Huez he did very well and joined the other 3 to get the Win in the Board team duels!!

Cammy Nicol won the freestyle ski and Sam Lauri managed to make a run which saved him a place for the finals too!

Two Weeks later it was an early start for the Finals….. 4AM!!! that was the first time most of us had seen the early side of 9am for sometime so it was a huge effort! Armed with 6 crates of Red Bull (thanks guys, you rock) the drive 5 hour drive there wasn’t to bad. We drove down with our friends from Herriot Watt Poly-tech and the guys from DUNDEE uni drove in convoy with us so much banter was had!

Results.

Tom Akass 1st Male Board
Calum Henderson 1st Male Ski

Granite City Challenge was SICK!! even had the snow again, two years in a row it didnt even need to be a dryslope comp so fingers crossed for next year too!

Male board Euan Taylor owned it and got a well earned 2nd
the Gnarthdee Callenge was a repeat of last year with Tom Akass 1st

Ok so its been a crazy busy couple of weeks up here with SUDs and BUDs going on, so here is a quick e mail to let you all know how they went and how NUSC got on!

So SUDs (Scottish University DrySlope champs) came up first and the sun was a shining for it up at thee almighty Hillend! First up was the Male Ski GS, the fastest race of the day!! We had the might of Ali Beatie, Erik “I’ve got a girlfried” Esson” and our new secret weapon, Callum Henderson. With some heroic efforts from the lads Callum set an incredible time and was sitting in first place until the very last man left the start gates! So second place for Napier in the GS, well done guys!

Next up was the Female GS with Kirsty “Barely Legal” Hope, Kirsty MacIntyre and Carla Gardiner. With two of them making the top 8 it was Carla Gardiner who took home our first Gold of the day!

The Snowboard GS was up next and with a terrifyingly fast course compared to previous year! We had a heap of first time racers to add to our team this year that did amazingly well! Amy Heart, David Gordon, James Fortune, Amy MacFarlane and Ian Dawson had never raced before but there is whole pile of potential here for future years! As well as them we as our older racers Paul Norman, Tom Akass, Matt “Sparrow” Higginson and Carla McGlynn. The results ended up being Carla McGlynn in 2nd place for the girls and then Sparrow 2nd and Tom Akass 1st in the dudes making it a Napier 1-2 in the boarding. They followed this up by coming 2nd and 3rd in the Slalom too!

On the freestyle side of things Napiers own Cammy Nicol came 3rd in the Ski Slopestyle and in the Ski Big Air with some sick switch 7’s. On the snowboard side of things it was our new rider Amy MacFarlane taking 3rd in the Big Air and the Slopestyle and Ben Venn taking 2nd in the Big Air with some “phat” misty 7’s.

So fantastic weekend and massive thank you the SUSC guys for organising the event. NUSC ended up coming 2nd in the overall points to Edinburgh Uni with only 1 point separating them!! Next year its ours!

BUDs was up the weekend after and with all the big British Uni’s showing up including all the big ones like New Castle and Bristol! Carla Gardier won the Gs for the girls and was then 3rd in some other ski event. Calum Henderson was rocked it again for the dudes ski with a well earned 3rd, next year its his for sure!

Snowboard wise it was Tom Akass who took the win for napier in the GS, with less than 0.04 seconds separating the top 3!! Carla McGlynn took the 3rd in the chicks. In the Boarder-X, Tom Akass took 3rd missing out to last years BUDs and BUSC winners. Carla McGlynn couldn’t continue her 4th BUDs Xoarder X win and had to settle for 2nd however, she did beat Ivy Taylor (UK Boarder X Team) so a big BOOOOYA to that!

Cammy Nicol rocked the freestyle ski side of things taking 3rd in the Big Air and the slopestyle!

So now for the best news of the two weekends and a big shock to every Uni in Britain. Napier, the small Scottish Uni that not many people would consider in the contention for even the top 10 for the overall Uni title came 2nd!!!! Might not sound like a big deal but this is an unbelievable result for us and (literally, I didn’t believe it when I found out!!) So well done guys and roll on the indoor comps and the Aberdeen invitational in the New Year!

Thanks to all our sponsors and the BUSC guys, you all rocked!