Welcome to the 74th edition of the Ski & Snowboard Australia E-News.

This edition provides an update of the latest results and program reports from our athletes and teams overseas.

Recent success in Freestyle and Snowboard World Cups has Australian athletes occupying more top 3 positions in the World Cup Standings than ever before.

Freestyle News

Begg-Smith on top of the world after victory in La Plagne
Dale Begg-Smith is back at the top of the freestyle skiing world after winning a dual moguls World Cup in La Plagne, France, overnight.

It capped an impressive two days for the Olympic champion, who had won bronze in the single moguls at the same venue on Monday.

The result means Australia's standing across a range of winter sports disciplines has never been higher, with Jacqui Cooper ranked number one in aerial skiing, and Holly Crawford holding down the number two spot on the snowboard halfpipe World Cup standings.

Skiing the dual format event rather than his preferred single moguls, Begg-Smith did not have a strong qualifying run, finishing in tenth place after earning the best points for his turns, but ranking near the bottom of the 16 qualifiers for his jumps and speed down the course.

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Sub-Development Moguls Report
After last weekend’s three competitions, we had a good two days of training in Steamboat Springs before traveling to Breckenridge on Thursday night. On Friday morning all skiers faced the course, which is called “Mach 1”. This course has got average steepness of 29 degrees, while top air landing was way over 30. The course was also very challenging and intimidating and we did see a lot of crashes both Friday and Today. The worst crash of yesterday belonged to Tom Thorburn, who ended up hurting his back with the consequence of not skiing today. He will train again tomorrow and hopefully ski the dual competition as well.

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Snowboard News

First silver to Australian halfpipe rider
Australian snowboarder Holly Crawford has won the silver medal in a halfpipe World Cup in Bardonecchia, Italy, the best result of her career.

Crawford won the qualifying round in the Torino 2006 Olympic pipe with an impressive 43.6 points, 2.4 points ahead of 2007 World Champion Manuela Pesko of Switzerland.

The 22-year-old Sydney rider was unable to reproduce that form in the final, scoring 38.0 from the judges as Pesko posted 39.3 for the gold.

Paulina Ligocka of Poland took the bronze medal with 36.2 points.

It was just the second podium finish for Crawford, and it puts her into second place on the World Cup standings. Pesko leads the title chase on 1600 points from Crawford on 1250 and US rider Gretchen Bleiler on 1000 points.

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NSWIS/SSA Halfpipe Development Team Update
The NSWIS/SSA Halfpipe Development Team competed in the Copper Mountain leg of the Revolution Tour over the weekend with some great results. The Slopestyle event was on Saturday with just under 100 competitors taking to the jumps and rails. Nathan Johnstone qualified first in his heat and went on to place 3rd in the final.

Sunday’s Halfpipe event was run under cold blue skies despite predicted snowfalls all week.
The girls were off first with Hannah Trigger placing 8th with some huge airs and Simone Pritchard competing in her first event placing 22nd.

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Alpine News

Alpine Development Update
NSWIS Scholarship Athlete's Tomi Crewes and Katya Crema have again experienced some ups and downs since our return from Quebec in mid-January.

It's now the beginning of February and unfortunately Tomi Crewes recently sustained a number of injuries competing in a FIS Downhill event in Apex, British Columbia.

After making a slow but solid return to on-snow training and completing a number of competitive SG training runs with the Alberta Ski team and members of the Canadian National Development Team at Nakiska in Alberta, Crewes was on-track and skiing well at the 1st day's training for the Mars Downhill here at Apex.

Taking the 2nd day off to rest, unfortunately on the 3rd and final day's training, she fell onto her hip through a turn at a spot known as Devil's Drop and slid into the nets part way down the course.

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Mens Alpine Development Update
The boys competed in the SG at the World Ski Championships today. Will Clifford started 60th and finished in 56th position. Brenton Fetterplace started 65th and finished 59th. Both athlete's skied solidly in very good conditions. The snow was perfect and hard as was the weather. Blue skies finally arrived as did the cold temperature at -15 degrees.

Will and Brenton fully embraced the atmosphere at the WSC and can use this experience to help them in future big events.

We will be returning tomorrow to Austria and then travel to Switzerland for the NJC SG and FIS SG at the resort of Verbier.

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Cross Country News

Davos World Cup, Switzerland, February 4-5
High expectations for the World Cup this weekend fell short. A combination of errors, lack of confidence, and bad luck led to some disappointing results. It started with the men's 15km Freestyle, and Ben Sim racing on skis that had too cold a structure for the conditions. It became apparent on the long downhill when a Norwegian and then a Swede rocketted past.

Simbo ended up in 70th place out of 71 starters, his FIS points of 107 not that bad but his worst in a World Cup this season and stark reminder of what the race could have been with good skis. After the race Simbo's race skis were tested against the 178cm Germina test skis and ran considerably slower. Basically it was a big stuff-up that we shouldn't be making at this level of competition. Up next, the women's 10km Freestyle. KT Calder was feeling a bit of pressure in her first World Cup of the season, not helped by having the worst FIS point average of the starters by about 40 points. She started okay, with 5 seconds of the two USA skiers after 2km, however after about 4.5km she imploded physically and mentally and pulled out of the race. It was just not a good day.
 
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