Alain Baxter

Alain Baxter ( born December 26, 1973 in Edinburgh ) is a Scottish former alpine skier, who won at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City the first British medal in alpine skiing before it was subsequently taken from him because of a positive doping test.

Biography

Baxter was born as the son of two British ski racer Iain and Sue Baxter. It was named after the French skiing star Alain Penz. Through his parents, who were working on their career as a ski instructor, Baxter came early with the ski in contact.

At age 16, he was appointed to the British ski team. In February 1996, Baxter played his first World Cup race. But in none of his first twenty races he came only in the standings.

As of 2000, Baxter worked with the coach Christian Schwalger. Meanwhile, work slowly took him to the top. In December 2000, he drove in the slalom at Madonna di Campiglio for the first time in his career in the top ten. In March 2001, he reached the fourth place in the slalom at Åre the best result of his career. Baxter finished the 2000/01 season in eleventh place of the FIS ranking in the slalom, the highest position ever achieved a British runners.

At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City Baxter went into the Olympic annals. In the slalom, he became a sensational third parties and became the first Briton in the history of Alpine skiing Olympic medal awarded. Shortly after returning to his hometown of Aviemore was known that the sample taken from him at the games doping sample contained traces of the synthetic stimulant methylamphetamine. The International Olympic Committee disqualified Baxter then subsequently recognized him his medal again and she said to the race in fourth-placed Benjamin Raich who was handed over by the ÖOC President Leo Wallner on 10 December 2002. Later he was in the consultation process present a convincing story that the substance came from his nasal spray that in the U.S. version had a different composition than in the UK. The International Ski Federation followed his statement and sentenced him to the minimum possible ban of three months.

As a result, Baxter was able to never quite match his form of 2001 and 2002, but remained the most successful runners of the British team. At the 2005 World Championships in Bormio, at the Olympic Winter Games 2006 in Turin, he finished each of the 16 place in the slalom. After he could 2008/ 09 contest no more World Cup races in the season, he gave on April 2, 2009, the end of his career known.

Baxter's brother Noel is also a member of the British Ski Team, his cousin Lesley McKenna successful snowboarder.