On the 5th January the British Team arrived in the small Austria town of Rauris to commence training in preparation for the British Championships and the second FIS Telemark World Cup of the 2012/13 season.

Joined by over one hundred servicemen and women from across the three services (British Army, Royal Navy and RAF) competition was fierce for podium places in both the Army and Open Championship races.

With the addition of the recently selected Junior Development Team, comprising of: Edward Lees, Nick Henderson and Ollie Wotton the team spent the first five days freeskiing before progressing into GS gates prior to the first Championship race.

As a result of the rising temperatures in the valley, the race jury took the decision to move the opening race up the hill to the Gipfelbahn piste.

Kicking off with GS, racers battled against poor visibility and 30cm of fresh snow on the hill. With less than a second separating the top three men after the first run, Chris Stewart took the gold medal followed by Jack Harvard Taylor and James French.

The following day provided the British racers with similar, challenging conditions for the Sprint Classic race. Again Chris Stewart skied into first place, closely followed by James French and Jack Harvard Taylor finishing in bronze medal position.

On the final day of racing the sun emerged for the Classic race, the longest of the three Championship races. The demanding course started with a flat one hundred metre skate before dropping into a series of open ‘super G’ style gates. Following on from this, athletes where put through their paces with a long GS section before the rap (360 degree banked turn) and uphill skate into the finish. After an exhilarating race Chris Stewart beat Jack and James, finishing with an impressive final skate and clinching the gold medal.