PEAKING at the Olympic Games is never easy but Noel Baxter seems to have reached his best form at just the right time. Last week he produced two world-class slalom runs which helped him to 14th-place finish in the men's combined event, the best ever British result for a male skier in this discipline.
It was the first of his two Olympic outings at these Games and his performance in the combined was the ideal confidence booster ahead of his main event, today's men's slalom.
"I have the feeling that my slalom skiing is very solid and I have much
more belief in it than I did earlier this season," explained Baxter, 24, yesterday. "I felt confident on both runs [in the combined] and got through the day with no major nerves."
It has been a tough season for Baxter, who is keen to emerge in his own right from the shadow of his elder half-brother, Alain, 32.
With only one British spot allocated on the season-long World Cup slalom tour, the Baxters and James Leuzinger faced off for the place in the pre-season NorAm slaloms in Colorado last November. Alain won, leaving Noel - who has raced World Cup for the last two seasons - to take a retrograde step to the Europa Cup tour.
"I can't complain really," says Noel. "Alain was the better skier on the day then and won it fair and square. I hadn't performed well enough, but Europa Cup has been OK."
A sixth in the Europa Cup meet in Andorra immediately prior to coming to Sestriere was the perfect platform from which to take on the world's best. Last Wednesday he skied to 17th in a Europa Cup in Madesimo, skiing the sixth fastest second run.
In combined slalom he was just one second shy of World Cup winner Bode Miller's first run time and got himself between Austrians Mario Matt, the 2001 world champion, and Rainer Schoenfelder, the 2003 World Cup slalom champion.
These Olympics could see a changing of the guard in British slalom. With the pressure off and a strong case already in place for funding for next season after last week's result, Noel could very well do better today than Alain.
With a strong result on the day Noel could justifiably lay claim to the British place for the remaining two World Cup slaloms in Shiga-Kogen, Japan. Noel, who as a youngster was much more of a hothead than Alain, has cut a calmer figure recently. He puts this down to working with sports psychologist Donald McNaughton, who has Inverness Caledonian Thistle as one of his main clients.
"He has helped me change the way I approach the race," admits Noel. "I am able to stay much more calm. On a scale between Manfred Pranger [the Austrian who is renowned for leaving the start gate screaming] and Bode Miller [who leaves the gate at a seemingly leisurely pace] I am now much closer to Bode, and it seems to work for me. So much of slalom skiing is about what goes on in your head."
Bettering his 20th place finish in the slalom in the Salt Lake Olympics four years ago is Noel's ambition today and on current form he has every chance of achieving it.
