Dunkeld skier, Connor Wilson (22) has for the second time been selected to represent South Africa at the FIS (International Ski Federation) Alpine World Ski Championships.
The championships, to be held in Åre, Sweden from 14 to 17 February, will feature both slalom and giant slalom disciplines.
These disciplines are different in that they have different distances between the gates that skiers need to ski between.
Wilson is the top-ranked South African skier in both disciplines and finished 49th in the slalom qualifier and 54th in the giant slalom final at the championships in Switzerland in 2017. These results were in the top half of the competition.
“As always, I am looking to improve on my past performances at competitions such as this,” he said.
“I am also looking at this as an opportunity to gain experience on the world stage and hopefully set me up for the Olympics in China in 2022.”
He said he was grateful to have the opportunity to race against the best skiers in the world and see how much he had improved.
Wilson’s training base is the Afriski Mountain Resort in Lesotho but he is in Switzerland at the moment preparing for the big event.
“I have a good idea of how hard I can push without making a mistake or crashing. My plan is to ski smart and focus on skiing clean runs which in turn leads to faster run times.”
He represented SA at the Winter Olympic Games in South Korea last year and was the only South African at the Olympics and qualified for both slalom and giant slalom.
Wilson was also invited to coach the South African Airline skiing team at the 59th World Airline Ski Championships held in Austria.
Subsequent to that, he went on to compete at the annual FIS races held at Tiffindell Ski Resort, including the South African Championships, which he won for the third year in a row.
Also read: CITY NEWS – SA sole Winter Olympics competitor: Connor Wilson
