January

World Under 21 Championships are being held this month at the beautiful Miranda ski school in Chile.

It is an absolutely perfect location for these championships and im looking forward to returning back there! This will be my 3rd time in chile, winning my first Junior worlds there in 2002 and taking home the bronze medal at the World Under 21 Championships in 2003, so Im looking forward to getting back there and skiing on that glass calm water with the Andes towering in the close distance!

A truely magnificent site!

With it being my winter months, its been hard to get prepared for this event however Ive battled on and hopefully all will go to plan on the day. As many know, I live in (sunny???) Scotland where I train at my own loch, the Black Loch.

The name of the loch gives you a hint as to what im going to say next!

It really has been tough skiing this last month, skiing in temperatures below 0 degrees celcius isn't much fun. However I put on my dry suit, 2" thick gloves and rubber helmet and got out there and did what needed to be done. I would do 6-8 back to back passes, jump on the duck board, try get the feeling back into my hands by running hot water out the back hose and then continue with another set. It really was a blessing in disguise when our vaporizer kept freezing over, hence the creation of our hot water hose!

I did my UK training in Scotland and Princes Ski Club, London. Princes Waterski manager Lynsey Graham was a saint, she got up and took me for a little swerve! We laughed but I don't know if we were actually having that much fun!

At this point it's like 2 degrees!

However I got through it and it only made me tougher. It also made me appreciate going out to Florida a bit more. I did my last 3 week preparation out there at Jodi Fishers ski school in Orlando. It was really great. Skiing with Jodi was really cool, he helped a lot. Mike Ferraro also came over and did some coaching....he really is the most wanted man in the industry!

So.... fingers crossed. I look forward to getting out there and having a wee go! Bring on the sunshine!