Baxter out to make amends in Turin

Published on Thursday 26 January 2006 00:07

FIVE Scottish skiers and snowboarders were named yesterday in the British team for next month's Winter Olympics in Turin. Noel and Alain Baxter, Finlay Mickel and Roger Cruikshank are in the six-strong skiing squad, while Lesley McKenna is one of four snowboarders who will represent Team GB in Italy.

The Baxter brothers will compete in the slalom and giant slalom, with Noel also taking part in the combined event. Cruikshank and Mickel are in the Super G & Downhill, and McKenna is in the halfpipe.

Alain Baxter was Britain's most successful skier in the last Winter Olympics - until, that is, he failed a drugs test and was made to return the bronze medal he had won in the slalom. "Of course it has affected my career, but I don't think about it any more," he said this week.

"The medal's gone, so why dwell on it? I've just got to pick myself up again. There is no reason why I can't win a medal in Turin."

The form book, however, suggests that will be a tall order. Ranked just outside the world top ten at the end of 2001, Baxter is now just inside the top 60.

Noel, Alain's younger brother, was 21st in the slalom in 2002. McKenna, a cousin of the Baxters, was among the favourites for her event four years ago, but finished 17th - her worst placing of the season.

Mickel is ranked just outside the top ten in the downhill. Cruikshank, an RAF flight officer, has made the team after fighting back from a serious leg injury last year.

England's Chemmy Alcott is the only woman to have made the team. She will take part in the Super G, downhill, combined and slalom. The other snowboarders are Dan Wakeham and Kate Foster (men's and women's halfpipe) and Zoe Gillings (snowboard cross).

Tom Clemens will be in the men's biathlon, while Emma Fowler is the first British woman to qualify for an Olympic biathlon.

Meanwhile, Alpine ski World Cup champion Bode Miller will miss two speed races at Garmisch this weekend to focus on preparing for his assault on all five events in Turin.

Miller has not missed a World Cup race in four seasons and has 135 consecutive starts behind him.

US team spokesman Marc Habermann said the break was part of a long-planned strategy to allow Miller to concentrate on training for the Olympics.

Miller won two silver medals at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, but since he became the first American in 22 years to win the overall World Cup last March, he has

failed to finish five of this season's seven slaloms and is fourth in the overall cup standings.

Miller, who upset ski officials earlier this month with comments about being in bad shape at the start of some races after nights of partying, denied suggestions that he was having problems with his fitness.

"There's been speculation I'm not in great shape," he wrote in a weekly column in the Denver Post. "I think my level of fitness is pretty good. Right now I feel good."