Alain Baxter
| — Alpine skier ♂ — | |
| Disciplines | slalom |
|---|---|
| Born |
26 December 1973 Edinburgh, Scotland |
| World Cup debut | 1996 |
| Retired | 2009 |
Alain Baxter (born 26 December 1973) is a Scottish skier who was formerly a professional specialising in the slalom discipline. He is best known for failing a drug test after finishing third in the men's slalom of the 2002 Winter Olympics, resulting in him being controversially stripped of the bronze medal. An honest mistake involving the use of a nasal inhaler purchased in the US had led to the presence of a banned substance in Baxter's urine. He was allowed to return to competition, although his appeal to have the medal reinstated failed. He competed in FIS events from 1991–2009 and became known as "The Highlander". In the World Cup events, he achieved eleven top-fifteen finishes and four top-ten results.
Baxter was born in Edinburgh, the son of Iain and Sue Baxter, who were both British Ski Team members. Baxter's father named him after Alan Breck Stewart, a character from the Robert Louis Stevenson novel Kidnapped, that was a rebellious Highlander. The French spelling led some to believe he was named after the 70s French skiing star Alain Penz. At 16 years of age, he was selected to the British Alpine Ski Team in 1991. Baxter's first 10 years of competition were achieved without him having access to any significant funding. Austrian journalists gave him the sobriquet "The Highlander". He steadily worked his way through the world rankings, making the top 100 in time for the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. At Nagano he straddled a gate and was disqualified, having been 15th-fastest at the checkpoint just before.
His best result in World Cup is 4th at Åre 11 March 2001 and he had 3 other top 10 finishes in 2001. In 2001, at Wengen he finished seventh in the World Cup Slalom, the best performance by a Britain.
Ahead of the olympics, ski technology was developing rapidly and Baxter's sponsor Head, was struggling to keep up the progress made by other ski manufacturers.
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