The plan was for 18-year-old Ben Sim to make his World Cup debut in the 10km freestyle in Ramsau today. Unfortunately the "wild card" World Cup entry expected to be granted by FIS (Sim's best FIS points are only just outside the distance WC qualification standard of 50 points) was disallowed on Monday this week. Sim and coach Nick Almoukov, who were on site in Ramsau to watch the competitions, will now re-schedule their plans for the World Cup competitions in the Czech Republic on January 17-18, where Ben's starts in the 15km classic and the 1km sprint have been confirmed.
Some past news from Ben and Nick. From November 25th they were based in Novouralsk in Russia. On December 5th and 7th Ben competed in the Ural Cup, which featured skiers from about 33 Russian regions, plus Kazakstan and Ukraine. In the 10km classic Ben finished 19th, 2:47 behind Jevgeniy Koishevoy from Kazakstan who finished 2nd in the 2003 World Junior Championship 10km classic. In the 15km skate Ben finished 29th. The next weekend it was off to Tobolsk, a historical city dating to the 15th century. The organising committee gave them a warm reception, putting them up in a 4-star hotel. The races on the 13th/14th were a 10km classic and 15km skate pursuit. The first prize for this competition was a car. Ben finished 34th overall after the two races out of 158 starters.

Now in Ramsau, Ben and Nick head off to Slovakia on Tuesday where they will be soon joined by other younger members of the NSW junior team.

OPA CC #1 (for Australians)
There was a lot of tough competition in the OPA Contintental Cup this weekend, with over 230 athletes competing at Toblach in northern Italy. Saturday's event was an individual sprint, and Esther Bottomley missed out on qualifiying for the finals by 1.4 seconds. Esther finished 18th in the open women's class, 11.9 seconds behind Magda Genuin from Italy, with KT Calder 3.8 seconds further back in 26th place. Chris Darlington finished 69th in the open men's event, 17.9 seconds behind the fastest qualifer, Mirco Rigoni of Italy. FIS points would be approximately 117, 142, and 191 respectively. Esther was pretty happy with her race, KT skied okay if lacking a little power, while Darlo felt a bit uncoordinated racing on such a short fast course for his first race.

Today were 10km and 15km mass start freestyle events for women and men. KT Calder finished 60th out of 70 in the women's 10km, about 12.4% behind the winner Anke Reshwamm from Germany. Darlo finished maybe about 85th out of about 100, with a stackload of extremely fast Italians dominating the front of the field. FIS points were not so hot, maybe 175 for KT and 190 for Darlo, but they never usually are in mass start events unless you manage to get into one of the leading packs. Unfortunately the team had to hit the road before all the results were published.

All up, not too bad for season-opening races, everybody is healthy but not really quite in racing form yet. The OPA Continental Cup will continue in two weeks in Bernau in Germany, the same Australian skiers will be racing; in between will be the German Sprint Championships and possibly a FIS race in Austria. All this crew is based now in Ramsau in Austria until Boxing Day.

NORAM Continental Cup
More news from the SuperTour event from Soldier Hollow in the USA, which would have concluded today after a pile of races over 9 days. After an average performance in the opening sprint Andrew Circosta finished 33rd out of 67 in the 15km freestyle on December 14, with FIS points of about 141. Nick Grimmer and Paul Circosta did not have such great races in this event, finishing 55th and 60th. On December 17 was the 10km classic, which was changed from mass to individual start. Grimmer and A.Circosta had pretty good races here, finishing 18 seconds apart in 35th and 37th, and possibly (but not confirmed yet) each with personal best FIS points. That was it for this crew of Australians in this competition - they drove 11 hours back to Tahoe after the 10km. No news yet on Belinda Phillips and David Hunt, who were scheduled to compete on this weekend just gone