2021 Alpine In-Club Skills Assessment off to a good start

The 2021 Alpine In-Club Development Camp and Skill Assessment program is in full swing with almost 150 athletes already successfully completing the protocol, as Snow Australia National Alpine Director Shawn Fleming supported Perisher Winter Sports Club, Thredbo Ski Race Club and Thredbo Mountain Academy with the delivery.

The new protocol for 2021 is an evolution from the traditional one-day National Skills Assessment format. It aims to increase the success of athletes’ long-term outcomes and create opportunities for the Alpine Director to contribute to the professional development of club coaches and spend quality time with athletes in their daily training environment.

Fleming said he was very pleased with what he saw during the assessments and praised the positive team culture shown by all involved. 

“We’ve had some very good days so far. The weather has been pretty solid and everyone had a great time.

“It was very rewarding to see all the athletes supporting each other. Everyone was cheering each other on and there was a really positive vibe during all skills assessments,” he said.

Fleming explained that the philosophy behind the program aims to help athletes and coaches improve their ability to assess individual situations, which in turn will support athlete development.

“That’s really the focus of the skills assessment,” Fleming said. “We want to be able to identify strengths and weaknesses for each athlete and use that assessment to help formulate a specific development plan. The plan will take into account where each athlete is with their skills and indicate what their main focus should be moving forward.”

The current travel restrictions imposed on large areas of the country will unfortunately limit Fleming’s ability to travel to the remaining resorts in the near future. The skills assessments and a number of activities already planned over the next few weeks, such as coaches workshops, parent town halls and coach development activities are still planned to go ahead once the travel restrictions are eased.

All the information on Snow Australia’s National Alpine Skills Assessment is available at https://www.snow.org.au/pathways/alpine-skills-assessment/.