Page 42 - MERCIAN Eagle 2021

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Ex FROSTED BLADE 36
Lt Wass, 2IC Alpine Skiing
Our participation in Ex FROSTED BLADE 36, The Infantry Alpine Championships,
has seen 1 MERCIAN soldiers challenge themselves and perform admirably against the odds. Lt Arnold, OIC Alpine, suffered
a late injury meaning that despite his incredible efforts to get the team deployed to the French Alps, we made a late change of Team Captain with Lt Wass stepping into the role. Lt Arnold’s position was taken by a recent arrival to battalion Pte Hadfield and meant that our team would now deploy with 6 novice members, and only 2 soldiers with previous skiing experience.
The long journey to Val d’Isère, one of the world’s leading ski resorts, was immediately forgotten about after the first day of skiing. It was instantly clear that our soldiers absolutely loved the sport and despite many falls, and early red face moments, they were going to throw themselves into developing their skiing ability with gusto. Two and a
half weeks of intensive ski training followed, with incredible French instructors ensuring that soldiers were pushed to get better and better. Travel restrictions
with a 2nd place finish, losing narrowly to the Welsh Guards in the final.
Alpine Skiing, and certainly racing, is not for the faint hearted. Indeed, it is the fear factor, the ability to face participating in a downhill race where you’ll likely exceed the national speed limit after only 4 weeks on skis, that explains why the Army values the sport so highly. With that comes risk and we faced some injuries along the way
R-L: Cpl Kelly, Pte Farah, Pte Redfern, Pte Hadfield, Lt Wass
hopes were immediately raised. Lt Wass achieved success in the first event of race week, winning the Individual Novice Bronze in the A Hill Giant Slalom. Armed with the belief and knowledge that we could come away with more medals we attacked
each event with enthusiasm. Pte Farah’s performance across the race week was truly outstanding. He finished with 3 medals: a gold, a silver, and a bronze in the individual novice categories of Super Combined, Slalom and Giant Slalom respectively. He also won a 4th medal, the Overall Bronze for an Individual Novice on the A Hill, an admirable achievement. Lt Wass won two more novice bronze medals in the slalom and super combined disciplines on the A Hill. In addition, he came away with the award for the highest overall jump in seed ranking, originally starting at 127th place, finishing in 52nd, a rise of 75 positions.
On the B Hill 1 MERCIAN also saw success. Pte Redfern won the Overall Individual Novice Bronze. Pte Hadfield won the Overall Junior Silver Medal and a junior gold medal on the individual giant slalom. Hadfield’s excellent performance saw
him invited to join the A Hill for the Super
meant that a trip home
for Christmas was
not possible for our
team members, but
we were certainly all in
agreement that there
are far worse places
to be stuck over the
festive period. The
extra days provided
our team with additional time on the slopes which we utilised to prepare for the seeding races. The traditional FROSTED BLADE Christmas Eve slalom event provided the team with an initial, but surprising, taste
of success. Dressed as Santa Clause, the team received an early Christmas present
in the race training phase of the exercise. This left our team of
8, now numbering
only 5. 1 MERCIAN entered a team of 3
on the Primary Hill, or
A Hill, where the most challenging pistes and disciplines were on offer. This left 2 soldiers on
the Development Hill, or B Hill, where they would fight for a place on the A Hill later in the race week. Down on numbers, and with 4 out of 5 of our remaining team members novices, I was not initially hopeful of coming home with much silverware.
However, as we entered race week our
...we were certainly all in agreement that there are far worse places to be stuck over the festive period
Cpl Kelly in the tuck during the Super Giant Slalom. He exceeded 110kph during the event
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