The International Competition season is now underway and athletes from all four disciplines have officially begun their Olympic qualifying journey. National Team representatives in Cross Country, Snowboard and Alpine Skiing have competed in World Cup competitions with several athletes achieving results contributing towards their ultimate goal of Olympic Selection. This e-news focuses on some of these early competition highlights. The next few weeks and into early December will see the majority of our development and junior level athletes depart for their respective Northern Winter training and competition programs. Please Note: Ryan Taylor in the SSA office will be on leave for a well deserved overseas holiday beginning the first week of December. Ryan has been with SSA for over 5 years now and is looking forward to an extended break in Europe and the USA returning to the SSA office in late January. There will be an interim replacement for him, however we would ask that any athletes requiring ICL’s, insurance, and or any registration/membership please do so prior to the end of the month. The office will of course be able to process requests after this time; however as Ryan’s is the one most familiar with the ICL/Registration process it may take a little longer than usual. We look forward to updating you over the coming weeks, and as always we welcome contributions to both the e-news and the SSA website.   ALPINE Australian men’s alpine team Competing in his first major international event since the Chamonix World Cup January 2005, Jono Brauer made a solid start placing 24th overall in a Europa Cup indoor Slalom (knockout) event at Landgraaf, Netherlands. Although not an Olympic qualifying event Jono attacked the knock out Slalom event on the icey slope of the indoor SnowWorld complex with his normal aggressive self. In a field size of 105 starters Jono placed 13th - 0.71 seconds behind the fastest athlete in the qualifying run however, in the second run several errors cost him time and he subsequently was knocked out of the event, finishing overall with a 24th place. The event was won by Mattias Hargin of Sweden. click for more... High Performance Alpine Development Program As announced in the previous e-news, the High Performance Alpine Development pilot program is in its final stages of preparation before travelling to Europe to begin the Northern Hemisphere training and competition program. This exciting development initiative has received glowing support from the Alpine Racing community and is the first significant step in bridging the skill gap between the ever improving joint race club (VAC/NSWACT) programs and the National Team program. The team is as follows:   Bryce Stevens Demian Franzen Will Clifford Christian Geiger Tom Mathias Hugh Stevens Program Coach Mike Gould will be providing regular updates from the road which will available on the Alpine section of the SSA website. Australian alpine skiers take first step in Games qualification Brad Wall and Luke Deane have both skied to a top 80 per cent of field result in the opening giant slalom event of the 2006 World Cup season in Soelden, collecting the first of three qualification performances necessary for one of them to gain a place in the Australian team for Torino in February 2006. Wall recorded a time of 1 minute 13.44 seconds in the first run down the Rettenbach course on the glacier above the Austrian town, 5.40 seconds behind the fastest time of 2005 World Cup champion Bode Miller of the United States. Deane was a little under a second behind his team-mate in 59th place, in a time of 1:14:35. click for more...   CROSS COUNTRY Cross Country Preparations The Australian Team members are preparing for the next World Cup competitions in Europe and North America. The next World Cup event is in Beitostolen in Norway on November 19, and there is supposed to be a Norwegian Cup there from November 11-13. However at the moment the tracks in Beitostolen are closed because the organisers are trying to save the snow for the World Cup. It has been too warm to make snow for the past week and rain has been eating up snow all over Scandinavia. KT Calder and Clare-Louise Brumley, together with National Squad member James Rickard, are in Vuokatti in Finland at the ski tunnel. As well as the 1.5km of indoor tracks there has been 2.5km of snow outside. All three were supposed to be heading across to Beitostolen on November 10, however now they are waiting to see what happens with the Norwegian Cup; if it is cancelled or if the tracks wont be opened leading into the World Cup, they will stay in Vuokatti for as long as possible. Ben Sim, the remaining Australian skier competing at the World Cup in Beitostolen, arrived in Russia last week to join NSWIS coach Nick Almoukov in Soloboevo. Unfortunately there's no snow there, they are hoping it gets cold so they can get time on snow before they come across to Norway on November 13. Paul Murray is at his normal base in Borlange in Sweden, where there is also no snow. His Swedish club Falun-Borlange had been planning to hold a training camp anywhere there was snow, however the usual early season site Bruksvallarna has no snow, and Idre which had snow in October apparently now has less than 500m of tracks. click for more... FREESTYLE National Mogul Team Update The National Mogul team have been taking a break after a successful training camp on the glacier in Zermatt, Switzerland. The team were scheduled to return to training in Ruka, Finland early next week but due to poor snow conditions they have postponed their departure in hope that conditions improve. The team will make the trip back to Zermatt if there is no improvement in the conditions at Ruka. The first Mogul World Cup is scheduled for December 12 in Tignes, France closely followed by the Oberstdorf event in Germany one week later. National Aerial Team Update The majority of the National Aerial Team will travel to Apex, Canada on Monday to begin their jumping camp. Jacqui Cooper and Lydia Ierodiaconou will join the team a week later and Alisa Camplin will not begin on snow training until late December as she recovers from her recent knee injury. In December Liz Gardner, Lainie Cole and Bree Munro will compete in their first World Cup event since Mt Buller when they travel to Changchung in China to contend the double World Cup Aerial event. They will then rejoin the rest of the team in Apex as they train for the World Cup event in Tremblant, Canada. SNOWBOARD Bronze and Olympic qualification to Queensland snowboarder Snowboarder Damon Hayler has claimed a bronze medal in a snowboard cross World Cup event in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. The top 20 per cent of field result also qualified Hayler for the Australian team for Torino 2006. The 29-year-old Broadbeach rider finished in 11th place in the timed elimination round, then fought his way through three finals rounds, ousting the 2005 world champion Seth Westcott of the United States along the way. US rider Nate Holland took the gold medal, with Xavier Delerue of France claiming silver. Hayler's previous best result in a four event World Cup career was 31st in Valle Nevado a month ago. He will now take a break before competing in two snowboard cross events in Whistler, Canada, in December. Australian team-mate Emily Thomas finished in 26th place in the women's event, missing by just one spot the top 25 placing she needs as part of the qualification criteria for the 2006 Games team. The third Australian rider, Kai Robrahn, sustained a knee injury in training for the event and is returning home for surgery. Courtesy OWI/Sportcom National Snowboard Team Update The next stop for the Snowboard Team will be the World Cup at Whistler, Canada. This World Cup is very important to those athletes who have not yet achieved the Olympic Nomination criteria as it will consist of two Halfpipe and two Boardercross events. The Halfpipe team will be using Mammoth Mountain in the USA as their training base while most of the Boardercross team will be competing in Europa Cup and NorAm events in between training and World Cups.   FIS Newsflash Main decisions from FIS Council meeting in Oberhofen (SUI) FIS Alpine European Cup starts indoors Schloss Mainau (GER) opens doors for FIS Symposium DSV celebrates centenary Please click here to find the forty-fifth edition of the FIS Newsflash