Coach full of praise as Baxter lands 14th spot

Published on Monday 20 January 2003 00:00

ALAIN BAXTER today received a pat on the back from his coach after skiing into a creditable 14th place in yesterday’s World Cup slalom in Switzerland.

The 29-year-old Edinburgh-born slalom ace lost speed with a mistake midway through his second run after a good first effort.

Italian ace Giorgio Rocca won the event in 1min 47.88sec (53.92 and 53.96) with Aviemore-based Baxter’s combined times (55.44 and 54.20) amounting to 1min 49.64sec.

Coach Christian Schwaiger said: "We’ve known all season that Alain has been able to compete with the big boys.

"He was dogged by equipment problems last season but we seem to have sorted them out and everything appears to be fine."

Baxter, who has just rid himself of a bad cold, and has struggled to find real snow to train near the British team’s Alpine HQ at Lofer in Austria, has hit form at the right time.

The world championships in the swish Swiss resort of St Moritz start next month with the slalom on the final day on February 16.

Schwaiger added: "Alain had a good first run but made a small mistake in the mid section of the second. However, he kept on pushing and coming home in 14th is a really good result."

London-based Johnny Moulder-Brown, 24, who pipped Alain’s 21-year-old brother Noel for the second spot in the British line-up yesterday, did not finish the first run at Wengen. The Baxter brothers, plus Moulder-Brown, and Britain’s No.1 downhill specialist, Edinburgh’s Finlay Mickel, who finished 39th in his race on Friday, now head across the border and into Austria for next weekend’s races at Kitzbuehel).