Edition 95| 15 FEBRUARY 2008

Ski & Snowboard Australia E-News 95

Welcome to the 95th edition of the Ski & Snowboard Australia E-News. In this edition we provide all the latest discipline news including the most recent medal haul by our Freestyle Aerialists Jacqui Cooper and Lydia Lassila, Alpine Junior World Championships information and a SSA Board update from Chairman Dean Gosper.

Chairman's Update - Dean Gosper

With a new Constitution approved by Members and a consequential newly elected Board, it is fitting to resume regular updates. I am confident that the theme of these updates will focus increasingly on the operational and strategic issues confronting your Board.

100th Board Meeting

There was something symmetrical about the 100th Board Meeting of SSA being the first of the new Board. In summary, the Board took the opportunity to:

• review the “state of the Nation”, including the major sources and applications of SSA cash. Importantly, this information has been published on our web site for some time;
• offer early input on the key issues confronting the sport; and
• deal with a range of routine Board issues.

As a preliminary position, the Board recognizes the following primary key issues.

1. Maintaining high performance outcomes, which is central to SSA’s funding position with the Australian Sports Commission.
2. Raising revenue to be applied to discretionary outlays. This will increase the availability of funds for development level programmes.
3. Communications, particularly with Members and stakeholder relations, particularly with Resorts.
4. Discipline Committee review and restructuring. The priority will be Alpine with the appointment of an independent review by an internationally recognised expert.
5. Development of a Major Event strategy, incorporating a broadcasting partnership. This will raise the profile of our sport and potentially provide a revenue stream.

More

Key Meeting and Function Dates

Discipline News

Alpine

Branch third in Canadian champs

Craig Branch has won the bronze medal in super G at the Canadian National Championships.

Branch finished behind Canadian World Cup racers John Kucera and Eric Guay, but ahead of a handful of international World Cup competitors including British skier Finlay Mickel.

Skiing in Whistler, the site of the Olympic alpine events in 2010, Branch recorded a time of one minute 14.48 seconds, 0.41 of a second behind Kucera.

Guay took the silver with a time of 1:14.09.

The result for the NSWIS skier, was also his third best FIS point performance of his career.

A day earlier he had finished in eighth place in the downhill at the national titles.

Courtesy OWI/Sportcom


Junior World Championships

The Alpine Committee has announced the following athletes to be members of the Alpine Junior World Championships team which will be competing in Formigal, Spain beginning on the 23rd of February. For updates and the latest results please keep an on the SSA website.

Christian Geiger
Hannes Grimus
Katya Crema
Anton Grimus*
Scott Kneller*

*Injured/will not be competing

Cross Country

Sprint World Cup, Otepaa, Estonia

Paul Murray flew across from Sweden this weekend for the World Cup Sprint Classic in Otepaa in Estonia today, however the race didn't go quite to plan. Murray was travelling well in the 1.4km classic time trial but fell on a corner and then ran out of steam in the final straight after stressing and trying to make up time. He ended up in 64th place, 27 seconds behind the fastest qualifier. It was a disappointing result, as Murray had been training well in the last couple of weeks since returning from Canada. He is set to travel to Czech this week to join team-mate Ben Sim for the classic Team Sprint World Cup on the 2009 World Championship tracks in Liberec.

Biela Stopa, Kremnica, Slovakia

Ben Sim finished 2nd in the 25km Freestyle at the Biela Stopa in Slovakia on Saturday, 1:57 behind Slovakian World Cup skier Martin Bajcicak. Alex Almoukov finished 6th overall in the same race, and Juliette Booth was the 11th woman. The Biela Stopa is Slovakia's biggest loppet event, and part of the Euroloppet series. Booth returns to Australia this weekend, while Sim and Almoukov are staying on in Europe for the postponed World Junior/U23 Championships that seem likely to be in Italy in two weeks' time. In addition to the aforementioned Team Sprint, Sim will race the 15km Freestyle in Liberec next weekend.

More

Freestyle

Another quinella to Flying Kangaroos

Jacqui Cooper and Lydia Lassila have jumped to their second quinella of the season, taking gold and silver medals at the first World Cup aerial skiing event to be held on the Vancouver 2010 Olympic jump site.

Cooper collected her fourth victory of the season in a weather-disrupted single jump competition, extending her lead in the World Cup title chase to 175 points over Chinese skier Nina Li, with just three events remaining.

The women’s training and competition was disrupted for more than five hours by heavy snowfalls and the familiar thick fog that had forced the cancellation of Saturday’s mogul skiing event.

When the skies cleared late in the afternoon, Cooper delivered a high class triple twisting triple somersault on the back of a handfull of training jumps, scoring 101.85 points.
Lassila was right behind her Flying Kangaroos team-mate, earning 95.17 points for her triple twisting double somersault, repeating the one-two result that they achieved in the opening event of the year.

Bronze went to young Chinese jumper Shaungfai Dai on 93.67 points.

More

Snowboard

NSWIS/SSA Snowboard Halfpipe Development Team Update

The NSWIS/SSA Snowboard Halfpipe Development Team has completed the Revolution Tour events for 2008 with some impressive results.

The standard of these events has risen to an extremely high level over the past year.

It’s almost mandatory to have at least one 900 degree rotation in your run to make it to finals and even a 1080 to stand on the top step of the podium.

The USA use these events as selection for their Junior World Championship Team which assures that all the top juniors in the country are in attendance.

Below is a brief rundown of each event,

Spirit Mountain Minnesota

57 riders competed in the event, top 12 riders go to Finals.

Nathan Johnstone was the only Athlete to make the journey to Minnesota and qualified 2nd in his heat.

He then went on to finals where he placed 5th.

Copper Mountain Colorado

74 riders competed in the event, top 12 riders go into Finals.

Nathan Johnstone again qualified well placing 3rd in his heat and went on to finals where he placed 7th.

Jason Maxfield placed 18th, Charlie Steinbacher 25th and Sam Murphy 28th.

Park City Utah

74 riders competed in the event, top 12 riders go to Finals.

Nathan Johnstone again qualified well placing 2nd in his heat and went on to finals where he placed 4th.

Sam Murphy placed 26th, Charlie Steinbacher 28th and Jason Maxfield 37th.

We now head off to Tamarack Idaho to compete in our final Grand Prix event of the season.

It’s a long drive but with Shaun White and Gretchen Bleiler, Olympic Games Gold and Silver Medalists in Torino 2006, winning the last Grand Prix event in Breckenridge and sure to attend Tamarack, it’ll be well worth the trip. 

Sport Shorts

Alpine

Katya Crema Wins First Fis Race In The Northern Winter
No New Points For Branch In Val D'isere
International Children's Races - Ricky And Vratna

Cross Country

Nordic Shelter Supporters
Sprints in Canada and Switzerland

Freestyle

Sub Development Mogul Results from Schierlsee, Germany
Jenny Owens Quick Update

Snowboard

Bright leads Aussie performances at Winter X Games
SSA Snowboardcross Development Team Update