Edition 93| 11 JANUARY 2008

Ski & Snowboard Australia E-News 93

Welcome to the 93rd edition of the Ski & Snowboard E-news and the first for 2008. With the northern competition season resuming after the New Years break, Australian athletes continue to produce outstanding results at the elite level with World Cup podium finishes and personal best results achieved across a number of disciplines.

This edition of the SSA E-News provides all the latest discipline results, anti-doping information and introduces the final makeup of the new SSA Board.

Ski & Snowboard Australia Final Board Composition

The directors elected at the AGM in November together with the chair of the athletes commission, are delighted to announce the final composition of the SSA board following the process to appoint an additional four directors in accordance with the new SSA constitution.

The nomination process began with a call for expressions of interest, followed by an examination of existing director skills and the skills available from the nominees. The board met on several occasions to consider the skill set sought from nominated directors and conducted interviews with nominees where applicable.

The sport was truly complimented by the quality of applications received. It is hoped that some of the individuals who were unsuccessful with their application will maintain an involvement via Discipline Committees and future working groups.

Joining elected directors Dean Gosper, Nick Kennedy, Peter Cunningham, Greg McCormack and athletes commission chair Jacqui Cooper will be Kim Clifford (NSW), Rodney Payne (NSW), Suzie Warwick (VIC), and Hugh Whan (VIC). All of whom were elected unanimously.

The new board comprises a quality mix of sport and industry experience together with extensive corporate skills. The board is looking forward to the challenge of guiding SSA into the future under the new governance structure.

The full board of SSA will meet early in the New Year, and is expected to conduct a whole of sport strategic planning and operational review as a matter of priority.

For biographical information on all directors, please click on the names below.

Kim Clifford
Jacqui Cooper
Peter Cunningham
Dean Gosper (Chairman)
Nick Kennedy
Greg McCormack
Rodney Payne
Susie Warwick
Hugh Whan
 

WADA Prohibited List

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) updates its Prohibited List prior to the commencement of each calendar year.

SSA suggests athletes familiarise themselves with the changes included in the 2008 Prohibited List which come into force on 1 January 2008. For your convenience, I have included links to the 2008 Prohibited List and the Summary of Modifications to the List published by WADA below:

http://www.wada-ama.org/rtecontent/document/2008_List_En.pdf
http://www.wada-ama.org/rtecontent/document/Explanatory_Note_2008_En.pdf

In particular, please note that intravenous infusions have been made a Prohibited Method (see Section M2 of the List). The use of intravenous infusions is therefore banned at all times unless the subject of a Therapeutic Use Exemption.

Alpine

'Tweaked' knee ends Branch's Bormio hopes

A tweaked knee in training has prevented Craig Branch from adding to his World Cup points, the Perisher Blue skier going out early in the famed Bormio downhill over the weekend.
 
Branch landed awkwardly on a jump in his first training run on the Italian course, the impact of the flat landing leaving a painful knee joint.

“Bormio is considered one of the tougher courses on the circuit,” Branch said, “renowned for how icy and bumpy it is for the whole two minutes.”

“This makes it one of the most physically demanding courses and leaves you with barely enough energy to stay upright for the last 20 seconds.” More

Brauer injury puts season in jeopardy

Jono Brauer’s season is doubt following a recurrence of patella tendonitis after his return to Europe in December.

Brauer reports that the pain of the condition has become so intense that he is “unable to ski slalom for more than a day a week”.

“Even when I am skiing other disciplines, I am limited to a maximum of three on-snow days a week,” Brauer says.

“I will try to compete in the super combined event in Wengen (Switzerland) next week.”

“If I am still able to ski reasonably well and have the opportunity to make a result, I will continue on to Chamonix and Val d’Isere in France where the remaining two World Cup super combi's are.” More

Cross Country

China Tour de Ski, Shangri-La, December 28

Paul Murray and Esther Bottomley made an impressive start in the opening Sprint of the China Tour de Ski, with Murray winning the opening men's time trial and Bottomley taking second place in the women's time trial. The Australian pair travelled to China from Europe on Wednesday for the series, which takes in four events over 9 days in three different locations in China.

The opening stage was a Freestyle Sprint in Shangri-La, held on a 700m loop inside a football stadium at approximately 3200m above sea level (see link on Tour de Ski China website). In the finals both Australians were knocked out in the semi-finals, with Murray going on to win the B-Final and Bottomley taking second place in the B-Final behind Barbara Morrigl of Italy and ahead of Anna-Karin Stromstedt from Sweden.

Peter Larsson from Sweden won the men's A-final, Solfrid Braathen from Norway won the women's A-final. More

Freestyle

Three line up as freestyle World Cup resumes

Australia will have three representatives in action when the freestyle World Cup resumes in Les Contamines, France, at the weekend.

Salt Lake 2002 alpine skiing representative Jenny Owens and SSA skier Katya Crema will contest the skier cross event, with Crema making her World Cup debut in the discipline.

Owens, who re-injured her reconstructed knee early in the season, will be taking part in her fourth skier cross event since switching from alpine.

The 29-year-old Sydney skier has a best skier result of fourth, recorded in March 2006 in Sierra Nevada, Spain.

The field for the ski halfpipe event in Les Contamines will feature former moguls skier Davina Williams. Williams contested one halfpipe event last season, taking the silver medal in Apex in her debut appearance, almost three years after her last World Cup moguls event.

Courtesy OWI/Sportcom

Cooper and Lassila are world number one and two

In a brilliant start to the 2007/08 season for the OWI aerial skiing team, Jacqui Cooper and Lydia Lassila have emerged as number one and two in the world after the opening two events in China.

Cooper came away from the Lianhuan Mountain season opener with two gold medals and a significant early lead on the World Cup standings.

But just as significantly, Lassila (nee ierodiaconou), jumped to a silver medal result in her comeback event, and then added a fifth placing in the second Chinese World Cup to secure the number two World Cup ranking going into the North American legs of the circuit.

In the first event of the season, Cooper, 34, posted a massive score of 110.36 points for her triple twisting triple somersault in the qualifying round, then did enough in her double twisting triple somersault final jump to claim the gold on 196.62 points.

It was the 20th victory of her career, now into its 14th season. More

SSA Sub Development Mogul Team Report

The SSA Sub Development Mogul Team has finished its pre-season training camp in Silver Star, Canada. The snow conditions in the first 2 weeks were worse than the previous years, but with the combined effort of the NSWIS-SSA Mogul Development team and the Silver Star mountain resort, we got our training facilities up and running. The first week of skiing was designated to fundamentals of skiing, but as you might imagine, it wasn’t too long when the first jump was built, with the help of Mother Nature and resort machinery. Just a few days after this the aerial site was built, and as a Christmas present to the athletes, the mogul course was up and running.

This year’s team is consistent of 3 boys and 4 girls, with 2 more boys joining us in Colorado. Hugh Norton, Matt Graham and Kate Blamey travelling with the team for the second year in a row. Heidi Graham, Sarah Melville, Roanna Humphries, Rob Wojcik, Ashley Chapman-Davies and Zac Cunneen are the rookies of the team and are pushing their level higher every day. The whole team has worked hard and everyone is looking forward for the competition season.

Training was enhanced with intensive gym sessions with NSWIS strength and conditioner Alex Moore, where all of the athletes found out what physical training is all about.

Our competition season starts in the following weekend in Steamboat Springs, Colorado (USA). From Steamboat, we will be travelling to Breckenridge and Vail. I am very pleased for the effort that every athlete has produced in training and I am looking forward to the first competition.

Snowboard

Top four result for Australian snowboarder

© FIS - Oliver Kraus

Australian snowboarder Joh Shaw has made the first semi-final result of her career, just missing a bronze medal in the parallel slalom in Bad Gastein, Austria, overnight. Shaw finished fourth, eclipsing her previous best PSL result by eight places and climbing to 14th place on the world rankings. The 25-year-old Brighton rider qualified in 12th place overall, drawing a quarter-final head-to-head encounter with world number one Heidi Neururer.

Unfazed, she defeated the Austrian by 0.99 seconds on the first run, then followed up with a narrow 0.18 second win in the second run.

In the quarter-finals, Shaw came back from a first run deficit to defeat last start winner and world junior champion Julia Dujmovits, also of Austria, before losing to Nicolien Sauerbrejeij of the Netherlands in the semi-final.

In the bronze medal ride she went down to yet another Austrian, this time the former world number two Doris Guenther, but she ended the day more than satisfied with the career-best performance.

“It feels fantastic, it’s so great,” Shaw said.

“In the round of eight final I was the underdog against Heidi (Neururer) and had nothing to lose. So I tried to go as fast as possible and I did it.”

Australian riders Damon Hayler, Alex Pullin and Stephanie Hickey will compete in the Bad Gastein snowboard cross event on Sunday night, AEDT.

Shaw will contest a parallel slalom and parallel giant slalom events in La Molina, Spain, next weekend.

Courtesy OWI/Sportcom

NSWIS SSA Snowboard Halfpipe Development Team Update

The NSWIS/SSA Snowboard Halfpipe Development Team is back in full training mode after a brief break over the Christmas New Year period. While we were still snowboarding, enough time was taken to enjoy the usual festivities of Christmas.

Nathan Johnstone, Copper. Photo by Benny A

The Halfpipe’s and Parks in Copper Mountain and Breckenridge are in amazing shape and while it’s been cold, it’s providing excellent training for the Athletes. With the first of 2 Halfpipe events at the Revolution Tour Series quickly approaching at the end of January in Copper Mountain and Park City, everyone’s working hard on getting their runs together. The Christmas pudding proved to work a treat with everyone coming back riding stronger than ever. Stay tuned for an update after we’ve attended these events.

SSA SBX Camp Report 2008

The 2nd of January 2008 sees the start of Ski and Snowboard Australia’s first overseas Snowboarder Cross camp.

The first to arrive into our condo in the small ski town of Frisco was Ms Julia De Campo. Located just minutes from both Copper and Breckenridge Mountain’s, it is three level’s, with the girls on the lower level, kitchen, dining and living rooms on the middle floor and three bedrooms up-stairs, housing the boys. Julia spent a few lonely hours there whilst I was picking up Nick Warren and Bryan Taylor from Denver Airport. We soon arrived to help get everyone settled and find some dinner. With our youngest team member, Daniel Morrisey, already here, it was now just time for one more, Emma Pullin. Emma’s flight had originally been scheduled for arrival into Denver at 5.25pm, which would have worked out perfect with Bryan and Nick’s flights also around that time, instead, her flight out of Melbourne was delayed, and re-routed via Sydney, it saw her miss her connecting flight to Denver and forced to spend a night in L.A. courtesy of Qantas. We soon saw her after that ordeal the next morning and moved her into our Frisco residence. More