Alain Baxter

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Alain Baxter Alpine skiing
nation United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom
birthday 26th December 1973 (age 46)
place of birth Edinburgh , Scotland
size 179 cm
Weight 85 kg
Career
discipline slalom
society Cairngorm Ski Club
status resigned
End of career 2009
Placements in the Alpine Ski World Cup
 Individual World Cup debut 1996
 Overall World Cup 34th ( 2000/01 )
 Slalom World Cup 11. (2000/01)
 

Alain Baxter (born December 26, 1973 in Edinburgh , Scotland ) is a former British ski racer . He won the first British medal in alpine skiing at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, before it was subsequently withdrawn because of a positive doping test .

biography

Baxter was born as the son of two British ski racers Iain and Sue Baxter. It was named after the French ski star Alain Penz . Through his parents, who worked as a ski instructor after their career, Baxter came into contact with skiing at an early age. At the age of 16 he was called up to the British national ski team and in February 1996 Baxter contested his first World Cup race . But in none of his first twenty races did he even make it into the ranking.

From 2000 Baxter worked with the trainer Christian Schwalger. Its work slowly led him to the top of the world. In December 2000, he was in the top ten for the first time in his career in the Madonna di Campiglio slalom . In March 2001 he achieved the best result of his career with fourth place in the Åre slalom . Baxter finished the 2000/01 season in eleventh place on the FIS slalom rankings, the highest position ever achieved by a British runner.

At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City , Baxter went down in the Olympic annals. In the slalom, he was first sensationally third and was the first Briton in the history of alpine skiing to be awarded an Olympic medal. Shortly after returning to his hometown of Aviemore , it became known that the doping sample he had taken at the games contained traces of the synthetic stimulant methamphetamine . The International Olympic Committee subsequently disqualified Baxter on March 21, 2002, revoked his medal and awarded it to Benjamin Raich , who was fourth in the race , and who received it on December 10, 2002 from ÖOC President Leo Wallner . Later, Baxter was able to credibly demonstrate during the hearing that the substance came from his nasal spray, which in the US version had a different composition than in the UK. The International Ski Federation followed his declaration and sentenced him to the lowest possible suspension of three months.

As a result, Baxter was never quite able to match his form of 2001 and 2002, but remained the most successful runner on the British team. At the 2005 World Championships in Bormio and at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, he finished 16th in slalom. After he could not contest any more World Cup races in the 2008/09 season, he announced the end of his career on April 2, 2009.

Baxter's half-brother Noel was also a member of the British national ski team, while his cousin Lesley McKenna was a successful snowboarder.

successes

Olympic games

World championships

World cup

  • 4 results among the top ten

World Cup ratings

season total slalom
space Points space Points
2000/01 34. 222 11. 222
2001/02 78. 54 28. 54
2002/03 94. 42 36. 42
2003/04 72. 81 30th 81
2004/05 144. 4th 59. 4th

European Cup

  • 2002/03 season : 8th slalom ranking
  • 16 placements among the top ten, including 2 wins:
date place country discipline
December 13, 2002 Obereggen Italy slalom
February 10, 2003 Oberjoch Germany slalom

Nor-Am Cup

  • 1999/00 season : 6th slalom classification
  • 4 podium places, including 1 victory:
date place country discipline
9th of March 2000 Osler Bluffs Canada slalom

Junior World Championships

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Source: "Kronen Zeitung Wien" of March 22, 2002; Title: "Alian Baxter has to return bronze - Raich 'inherits' his second medal!"
  2. ↑ Slalom specialist Baxter does not get the medal back. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , October 16, 2002, accessed on April 21, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Alain Baxter announces resignation. (No longer available online.) ORF , April 2, 2009, archived from the original on April 5, 2009 ; accessed on April 21, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sport.orf.at
  4. ^ Doug Gillon: Last chance for Noel Baxter. In: Herald Sport , February 20, 2010 edition. Online , accessed January 6, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Baxter, Alain
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British ski racer
DATE OF BIRTH December 26th 1973
PLACE OF BIRTH Edinburgh