Chinese
Dutch
Search
Skiing News
Skiing News - August 2006
Display Mode:
Feed
Thursday, 31 August 2006
With the announcement of the winning host for the 2014 Winter Olympics due on July next year, Denver is already looking further ahead. The Metro Denver Sports Commission is already considering a bid for hosti
ng the 2018 Winter Games, www.rockymountainews.com reported.
The committee has already contacted several groups that can help them realize their plans. It includes the Vail Valley Foundation which closely identified with skiing and snowboarding events in the United States.
At this point, everything is still at the stage of planning and conceptualizing things for the possible bid. It will then take around two years before the US Olympic Committee decides if it wants to make the bid for hosting the event.
To read more about this article, please visit www.rockymountainews.com.
Wednesday, 30 August 2006
QUEENSTOWN, N.Z. (Aug. 29) - Good snow, great ski area support and over-the-moon enthusiasm from athletes, who hadn't skied since spring, helped make the U.S. alpine women's training camp at Coronet Peak "outstandi
ng," according to Head Coach Patrick Riml.
The long layoff from on-snow training helped boost the excitement level, as did the presence of World Cup speed skiers joining the World Cup tech group. In the next camp, the traditional September camp in Portillo, Chile, the World Cup slalom and GS skiers will join the downhillers.
"It was a fun camp. If you don't ski in May, June and July, you get a little nervous because if that first camp in August doesn't work out with the weather, or the snow, you have to make-up some things and it could be a big headache," said Riml. "But this was fine...and after the long break, the women were fired-up.
"It was really good to see them being so hungry. They showed me some fire out there."
Jessica Kelley (Starksboro, VT), two-time NorAm giant slalom champion, echoed her coach. "It was good, a really good camp," she said. "We got a couple of storms, so we had lots of good training. We started slowly, free-skiing and then doing some drills because we hadn't skied in so long, and then GS...and then we had a lot of slalom at the end."
Kelley: cross-pollination works
She likes the idea of the intra-team training, the cross-pollination of gate-runners and the speed merchants. "Well do it again down in Chile next month, and that should be good again."
"As usual, Coronet Peak's Race Department gave us such great support with grooming and everything else," Riml said. New Tech Head Coach Chris Knight agreed, adding, "We had perfect snow, a natural injection, if you will, and it froze and became so hard, harder than a regular injection [of water to freeze the snow, creating harder, faster conditions]...but then we got a storm with about 25cm (nearly 10 inches), so that changed it...but we still had great conditions. We got quite a lot done."
Riml said the group included five speed skiers - Kirsten Clark (Raymond, ME), Stacey Cook (Truckee, CA), Libby Ludlow (Bellevue, WA) Lindsey Kildow (Vail, CO) and Bryna McCarty (Concord, VT) - and a half-dozen slalom/GS athletes: Kelley, Lauren Ross (Stowe, VT), Caitlin Ciccone (Bethlehem, NH), Resi Stiegler (Jackson Hole, WY), Katie Hitchcock (Sugar Bowl, CA) and Kaylin Richardon (Burnsville, MN).
The long off-snow break "was really good because it enabled the girls to build an aerobic base [with dryland training] and we were able to take up to 10 runs of slalom every day," he said. "They never got tired on the hill, and we'd be taking four or five runs in the first session, re-set [the gates] and take four or five more, and it never affected the next day's performance. We had all smiles throughout the camp...pretty extraordinary."
In two giant slaloms against largely non-World Cup competition, Kildow - "she's skiing so fast in GS and is in great condition," Knight said - and Clark went 1-2 each day. Stiegler won the lone slalom she raced in by seven seconds.
Stiegler, Kildow, Ciccone skiing fast
Stiegler also drew high marks for her conditioning and, as Knight said, "her position on her skis. Same as Lindsey, she's got that good position on her skis, and that's already showing in her speed skiing."
Ciccone, the reigning U.S. GS champion, "carried the momentum from winning that national title," Knight said. "She came in already right up to speed in GS and in slalom, right there with Lindsey in the race, especially right there with Resi in slalom. Caitlin was super enthusiastic and skiing very aggressively."
The Chile camp will feature speed training for the tech group, "but we'll have tech sessions every day after speed sessions. We'll run slalom the first week, GS the second. It's really good working together like this because the coaches kinda get on the same page, and we know what everyone's doing. Some of the girls don't want to be slalom skiers, or don't want to be downhillers...but the benefits of this kind of training are so huge...
"We'll work on some other stuff while we're training with them, and the change of scenery is good...and I think the speed girls liked this change of scenery, too," Knight said.
"We want to keep both teams together in New Zealand and South America. GS is something we need to work on as a group, and two weeks of speed training will help their GS side, get the girls used to going fast again."
This article was originally posted at the US Ski Team's website at www.usskiteam.com.
Tuesday, 29 August 2006
Treble Cone, NZ (Freeskier NZ)-World number five big mountain skier Hamish Acland, of Wanaka, claimed the winning title at the NZ Free Ski Open Volkl Big Mountain event at Treble Cone's Motatapu Chutes Wednesday.
Australia's Janina Kuzma won the women's event, continuing her successful form after gaining second place at the Open's K2 Halfpipe event last week. Acland (26), beat fellow Kiwi and former NZ Free Ski Open big mountain champion Geoff Small, who was placed second – despite Small pulling off the most impressive move of the day. Acland impressed judges by displaying both strength and speed in an exposed line.
"His run was a very complete run - it was incredibly fluid and clean. He skied a very technically demanding first half of his line, followed by some very fast and fluid skiing, with large, floating airs over more flowing terrain. In short, it was a very aesthetic line," head judge Nick Mills said.
Kuzma took the most dangerous line out of all the female competitors, Mills said. "Janina skied strongly over some steep snow-covered rock buttresses without any hesitation, showing enormous strength and aggression."
Judges assessed all 41 competitors (11 women and 30 men) on the difficulty of the run they picked, their control, fluidity, form and technique, and aggression during the execution of their run. The Motatapu Chutes are extremely complex, comprising chutes, towers and ridges, with runs up to 300m long. Spectators were able to enjoy watching the competitors take on the gut-wrenching drops from the adjacent face. Because of the extreme nature of the event, the competition depended heavily on weather conditions, which were such that skiers were only able to complete one run, instead of having the prelims, followed by the finals today.
Unfortunately, the weather this week has also been unsuitable for the Expression Session at Treble Cone, which was to replace the heli-access event this year.
NZ Free Ski Open event director Gerald Davies said the event was a spectacular finish to the competition, which began last week with the K2 Halfpipe and Slopestyle events at Snow Park NZ. "We couldn't have asked for better conditions today. The Motatapu Chutes were in ideal condition for these athletes and the weather was perfect. The competitors really made the most of the terrain and we saw some amazing riding."
Big mountain skiing has grown significantly, judging by the number of spectators watching from Sundance Ridge today, Volkl sales representative Charles Cochrane said. "Treble Cone has some of the best free riding available and with a prime location like the Motatapu Chutes. Not only were the riders stoked, the spectators had huge smiles on their faces as well. All in all, everyone was loving it."
The NZ Free Ski Open concludes Friday, August 25, with the inaugural BASE Downtown Rail Jam, which takes place in the Bullock Bar car park at 7pm. The invitational competition features 10 elite free skiers and snowboarders (yet to be named), who will take on the massive BASE rail (with snow thanks to Snow Park NZ) and perform their slides, rotations and big air in front of a panel of judges, all vying for the $2000 cash prize. Live music and MCs will also be there to help make this a great event for the public.
Results:
Womens:
1. Janina Kuzma (AUST)
2. Kate McDougall (NZ)
3. Jacobina Home (SCOT)
Mens:
1. Hamish Acland (NZ)
2. Geoff Small (NZ)
3. Alastair Eason (NZ)
Sunday, 27 August 2006
PARK CITY, Utah (Aug. 25) - John (Johno) McBride, who resigned in the spring after 10 years of World Cup coaching, including the last four as U.S. men's downhill/super G head coach, is returning as a combined coach
with the men's squad, Head Coach Phil McNichol said.
McNichol said McBride would work at the World Cup level with the men's top multiple-event skiers including 2005 World Cup overall champion Bode Miller (Bretton Woods, NH). Miller is the all-time U.S. medals winner at the Olympics (two) or World Championships (five) level.
"We've wanted to expand our versatility on the World Cup outside of just speed, just tech, and wanted to provide more support for multiple-event skiers," McNichol said. "Johno's the best guy to bring in. This should give that support to our top multiple-event guys."
McBride, who announced in March he wanted to spend more time with his wife and two young daughters, won't travel with the men all season, but work at designated times during the World Cup schedule, McNichol said.
While he was speed head coach, U.S. men had their greatest string of success, including Miller's world championships to Daron Rahlves (Sugar Bowl, CA) becoming the most successful American male downhiller in U.S. history (nine World Cup DH wins plus three super G victories). Rahlves and Miller finished 1-2 in World Cup races six times in 15 months, including the 2005 Worlds downhill, which Miller won.
This article was originally posted at the US Ski Team's website at www.usskiteam.com.
Thursday, 24 August 2006
SQUAW VALLEY, Calif. (Aug. 21) - The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association is hailing the late Alex Cushing, founder of Squaw Valley resort and the energy behind bringing the Winter Olympics back to North America in 1
960, as "a man of vision to match the mountain he developed."
Cushing, a longtime supporter of the U.S. Ski Team who was inducted three years ago as a member of the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame, died Saturday at 92 at his home in Newport, R.I., his family said.
Cushing, born in 1913 to a wealthy family and educated at Harvard University, is the only ski area founder to have been on the cover of Time magazine, a tribute to his masterful work and tenacious vision in bringing the 1960 Winter Games to the big-mountain atmosphere of Squaw Valley and the Lake Tahoe region.
A well-placed Manhattan lawyer, he got into the resort business after serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. The resort opened on Thanksgiving Day 1949 with a rope tow and the world's biggest double chairlift - and an epic mountain. In 1955, he surprised the sports world when he was awarded the 1960 Games after presenting the International Olympic Committee with an oversized model of the resort and what he planned to do with it - even though at that time he had just the one lift. Those were the first Olympics to be televised (CBS broadcast 15 hours of Olympic coverage).
Cushing would make the resort a world-class destination and, all the while, throw his enthusiastic support to USSA and the U.S. Ski Team. Squaw Valley last hosted the 2002 Chevy Truck U.S. Alpine Championships (with slalom at Sugar Bowl). Its alpine and freestyle athletes have included 2006 Olympic giant slalom champion Julia Mancuso and 1990 combined alpine world champion Tamara McKinney plus 1998 Olympic moguls champion Jonny Moseley and '02 Olympic moguls silver medalist Shannon Bahrke.
"The American ski industry and the U.S. Ski Team, have lost a great friend, a man of vision to match the mountain he developed," said USSA President and CEO Bill Marolt. "By bringing the Olympics back to the United States for the first time after the war - and in nearly three decades, Alex Cushing signaled that the U.S. ski industry was about to assume its rightful place in the front ranks of skiing. It no longer was a European sport.
"I think we all had a special feeling at the end of the 2002 Olympic season when we were able to hold the U.S. championships at Squaw Valley. Alex always ran Squaw as a gold-medal operation."
He is survived by his widow and three daughters. A public memorial service will be held at a time to be determined, his family said.
This article was originally posted at the US Ski Team's website at www.usskiteam.com.
For the latest news, tips, trivias and special offers, sign up to the ABC of Skiing newsletter.
advertisementadvertising info
advertisementadvertising info
Latest Skiing News
For a complete list of all discount coupons with our merchants, subscribe to our Discount RSS Feed: 
-
Visa
by mike121
-
www.airmaxtheshop.com
by jiangla
-
cheap Air Jordan online
by jiangla
-
nike air jordan shoes
by jiangla
-
WHERE HAVE I BEEN?
by ljj589
More in our Skiing Forum
MySpace
Squidoo
Scribd
Facebook
Twitter
© 2003-2012 ABC of Skiing, part of MaxLifestyle International Inc. All rights reserved.
