PROMISING young Ascot skier Dexter Lee wants to add to his already packed trophy cabinet and is targeting success at the upcoming English Alpine Championships in Italy.

The 16-year-old is already in the England Under 18 squad, as well as racing for the national children’s team last season, but is not letting success go to his head.

The English Alpine Championships are a week of national-level racing and skiing camaraderie, featuring the best English skiers in the country, ranging from U10 up to senior athletes.

Millfield School’s Lee will be competing at U18 level at the event for the first time, and is looking to turn good training form into performances on the competition slopes.

“It’s my first year so I’d just like to put in some good solid runs, so I just want to ski well and hopefully the results will come,” said the Team Evolution and Hemel Ski Race Club skier.

“Training has been really good. I haven’t been able to put it into races yet, but that just comes with practice.

“It’s not the easy part, but it’s easier than putting in the hard work and doing it every day in training.

“Results-wise I’ve improved quite a lot since my first races. It was a bit of a shock moving up the age group, I struggled quite a lot.

“But I’ve done some races recently and they’ve actually been OK, I’ve gone from skiing 200 FIS points – which wasn’t really where I was at – to skiing around 130, which is a lot closer to where I think I should be, which is cool.

“There’s been good progression there, but there’s a bit more to go.”

From today until February 17, 350 of the best English alpine skiers will descend on Bormio, Italy for the 21st English Alpine Championships, organised by national governing body Snowsport England.

The championships continue to feature the rising stars of Alpine skiing in England, previously acting as a platform for the likes of Chemmy Alcott and Dave Ryding. And with the step up in age group, Lee is adjusting his targets from wins, to podiums, with the hope of securing some personal best (PB) performances along the way.

“I’ve got a few wins and English titles, so it would be cool, going into this year, if I could be on the podium with the other English guys,” he added.

“If I ski well I should probably score some PBs, because I’ve not performed so well in races so far.

“But I don’t have any points goals for these sets of races.

“I’m in the Giant Slalom (GS), the G races, I’ll be doing all of them, that’s the plan. Normally my preference would be slalom, but recently my GS has been a lot stronger, so I’m feeling quite good going into both of them.

“I’m skiing pretty well in both of them, which is nice.”

Follow the English Alpine Championships on the Snowsport England Facebook page and get live updates on Twitter @SnowsportEng. Full results will be available at www.snowsportengland.org.uk while you can find your nearest slope offering value-for-money GO SKI GO BOARD sessions at www.goskigoboard.org.uk