Alpine - Alpe Cimbra International Children's Race
February 1-8, 2025 - Getting a feeling for how fast you truly are worldwide as a U16 can be quite a difficult task with minimal opportunities for head-to-head competition, especially against the best in the world of your age group. This past Summer both Ari Redwin and Seb Atra qualified to represent Australia at the 54th Alpe Cimbra International Children's Race (formerly known as the Topolino Time Trial). This race is noted internationally as the pinnacle of U16 competition across the globe with former winners becoming some of the world’s biggest world cup stars - Michaela Schiffrin, Alberto Tomba, Benny Reich, Henrik Kristoffersen. This year there were more than 40 countries represented with a max of 3 athletes per gender.
Just to start the opportunity to train with an international field is a unique experience. That the race venue has hosted former Europa Cup GS events made this opportunity even more special. After a few days of getting acclimated to the snow and time change the event kicked off with a big nations parade and opening ceremonies followed by the Slalom the next day. The women went first, and despite a valiant effort and some good sections of skiing along the way, Ari completed the first run but was unable to take part in run 2. Kicking off for the men, Seb started in 60th position and after a substantial mistake before the pancake flats at the bottom found himself just outside of the flip, then resetting for run two found himself another move up and ended the day with a 22nd overall in the Slalom.
The GS was the next day on a steep, consistent, and extremely icy pitch. Again the women started, and Ari with the early start fought hard down the pitch but with a few mistakes on run 1 was off the pace. She came back ready to move up the ranking for run 2 but not as much as hoped and ended up 53rd overall. Seb again kicked out hard and skied a very high-quality run and found himself in 10th position after the first run. Going into run 2 Seb brought the confidence, but with a few mistakes ended up 20th on the 2nd run bumping his overall finish back to 17th overall for the day & beating all the Americans in the race and nearly being the top athlete in the race training in North America.
This was a fantastic experience for both Ari and Seb testing their skills against some of the best athletes in the world in their age group; but this also serves as another checkpoint for the SBA U16 team. We have the pace and we have the skills. Now we just to find the two together on race day.