Please find enclosed a short report on the first europa cup in San Martino di Castrozza, Italy

Course specs: Length 245m Pitch 22degress
Weather: Clear and -3 degrees

Friday single moguls:
A great first up start for the NSWIS/ SAL mogul program for 2004!

In the women's event our best results came from Davina Williams placing 2nd and Anna Segal placing 3rd.
Davina who only arrived with the team a week earlier skied to her ability with a clean run jumping 360x at the top air and 360 at the bottom air. This was a great effort considering the minimal amount of on snow training she has had with the team and I have no doubt she will improve over the next week once she is fully at 100% Anna Segal who qualified 9th to just scrape into the finals by 1 place (and her first singles finals at Europa Cup) put it all on the line with a tremendous run jumping a Lincoln Loop at the top air and 360 at the bottom to make her first Europa Cup podium. She has made huge inroads with her overall skiing this northern hemisphere winter and the hard pre season training in Ruka Finland is starting to pay off for her. She is the only girl in the field doing flips and has stamped herself as one of the top female skiers on the tour in the first event of the season. The newest member of the team Philippa O'Donnell also had an outstanding run placing 12th for her best ever result in europa cup single moguls. Pip has really worked hard this past year on her overall skiing and the results are starting to show for her

In the men's Andrew Sirianni was the best-placed Australian qualifying 13th to make the top 16 finals men's field. In the finals he lifted and skied extremely well only to miss time his bottom air before crashing. The run was enormous until that point and it was a great confidence booster for him at only the first event of the tour. Ramone Cooper was the next best in his first europa cup start placing 25th and he will benefit form the experience, He was having a few difficulties with the jumps but this was a great first start for him. We identified a few areas on the jumps to change for tomorrow's event and I expect a bold showing from him Mark Babbage was the next best who qualified 26th and he was unfortunately given a rough go by the judges, Mark (and I) were very disappointed with the judge's scores and he and I have sat down and targeted a few areas we can work on to try and turn it all around for tomorrow's event.

Chris Height also skied very well in only his first europa cup placing 27th. He unfortunately miss timed his jumps but the judges scored his turns very well. I expect his results to improve dramatically over the course of the rest of the tour

Saturday single moguls:
An even better day than the first!

Anna Segal took off from where she left the day before and her semi finals run was very impressive qualifying for the finals in 3rd place. In the finals she left nothing to spare and was rewarded with a first place. This is a great achievement from her in only her second ever europa cup singles finals and the rest of the world has now taken notice of her. Again it was a Lincoln loop at the top and 360 at the bottom and the promising part is she can still improve on her run for the remaining events on the tour schedule. Davina Williams unfortunately missed timed her bottom air and fell but her run up until that point was outstanding and also would have pushed for a podium result had she not missed. Philippa O'Donnell again put down a consistent run with a double twister and single twister on her jumps and was rewarded with another PB result placing 11th and only missing her first ever europa cup finals by 2 places. Pip has made some great changes to her skiing since she has been with the team and we have not seen the best from her yet.

In the men's Mark Babbage turned it all around today with a much better run and was rewarded with a 4th place in semi finals. This was a great confidence booster for him after yesterdays disappointing result. Unfortunately for Mark he was having an even better run in the finals until the bottom air and mistimed his triple twister and until that point I thought then run was a podium place for sure. He placed 14th and is now full of confidence going into the next event in Spicak, Czech Republic next week. Andrew Sirianni improved on yesterdays result by placing 10th in the semi finals. Although the run was good he needed to work on his speed for the finals and he did just that with a fantastic run to finish in 7th place. Andrew has really matured as an elite athlete now and he too will go into the next event in the Czech Republic with great confidence Ramone Cooper came out today with nothing to loose and put down his best run on the course all week in the semis. Unfortunately for him the judges did not see it that way and placed him 32nd. Just to give you all an idea his run today scored less than yesterdays yet it was twice as better?

Although we were both very disappointed with the score he is even hungrier to show them up at next week's event in the Czech republic! Chris Height again had some difficulties off the jumps in his semi run and placed 45th overall.

I look forward to updating you all with next weeks report from Spicak in the Czech Republic

Toppa