Britain's top teenage alpine ski racer TJ Baldwin has had his Europa Cup race hopes dashed with a knee injury - just hours before leaving to compete in his first two downhill races.

Britain's top teenage alpine ski racer TJ Baldwin has had his Europa Cup race hopes dashed with a knee injury - just hours before leaving to compete in his first two downhill races.

The 18-year-old from Tharston crashed in training the morning before setting off for Reiteralm in Austria, tearing the meniscus cartilage in his right knee.

After surgery a few days later he is now recovering at home on crutches and has started physiotherapy and rehabilitation with the aim of returning to training and racing at the end of January.

'My training had been going really well up until the crash. I was skiing really fast in every event,' Baldwin said.

'Just a few days ago I had trained Super G with the Austrian men's World Cup speed team and I was only 1.8 secs behind the fastest, Klaus Kroell.

'On some of the split times I was almost as quick, so I know things were going well for me.

'I had already competed in a Europa Cup Super G a couple of weeks ago and was pretty pleased with my result, even though I made a few mistakes.

'Europa Cup is a really tough series to race in with all the top skiers in the world of my age racing to try to get the break into World Cup level.'

He added: 'I will be spending the next five weeks doing intensive physio on my knee and also other fitness to keep me in shape so when I return I will still be in great shape to compete at the very top.'

Baldwin, sponsored by Sunfold, will be competing at the World Junior Championships in Germany during early March and hopefully some other Europa Cup races before the end of the season.

In between these he will also be racing in several international races around Europe with the GB team, rounding the season off with the British Senior and Junior Championships in France over Easter, where he will defend titles won last year.