Vinter takes double victory as GB Alpine Championships return

20-year-old Owen Vinter was the name on everybody’s lips on the first day of the 2022 GB Alpine Championships

After a two-year covid-impacted hiatus, the GB Alpine Championships returned to Tignes today, with Britain’s Owen Vinter taking the Men’s Super G National Championships and National Junior Championships titles.

In the Men’s National Championships race, Vinter, racing in bib 8, held off Spanish Olympian Adur Etxezarreta by just one-tenth of a second to take victory with a time of 1:19.25, recording his first podium place of the season in the process. Atilla Banyai of Hungary took third, a further second behind Etzezarreta.

Vinter went on to repeat the trick in the National Junior Championships race, again pipping Etxezarreta to the top spot, with Canada’s Oscar Park in third.

Owen Vinter tops the podium in the Men’s National Championships Super-G

In the Women’s races, Australia’s Beijing 2022 Olympian Greta Small took top spot in the Women’s Super-G National Championships race, with Britain’s Giselle Gorringe less than a second behind her. Small’s victorious time of 1:21.83 saw her comfortably clear of most of the field, with Gorringe’s 1:22.71 the closest by a distance. Fellow Brit, Lois Jackson was unfortunate to miss the podium, coming just five hundredths of a second behind Italian Martine Brumin in third.

Small joined Vinter in doubling up with victory in the Women’s National Junior Championships ahead of the British pair of Jessica Anderson in second and Charlotte Holmes in third. Lois Jackson’s day of near misses was confirmed when she also took fourth in the NJC.

In the day’s trophies, Vinter’s NC victory saw him awarded the British Land Super-G Trophy, while Toby Jennings took the BASI Salver and the British Under-18 Shield. Vinter also secured the Kandahar Commonwealth Cup for his triumph in the NJC, while Kieran Woolley’s time of 1:23.07 marked him out as tha fastest British under-18 in the contest and the holder of the STS Shield.

As the fastest British woman in the Women’s National Championship race, Giselle Gorringe took the John Ritblat Super-G Trophy, with Lucy Jackman securing both the BASI Salver and the INGHAM Trophy. Charlotte Holmes, meanwhile, took the Walter Hutchison Challenge Cup as the highest placed age-qualified British racer, a resuly which also landed her the STS Shield.