Cross Country Director Update - February 2024
Published Mon 19 Feb 2024
Dear XC Skiers,
This update comes after the busiest month of competition for the season and plenty of late nights / early mornings watching the FIS live streaming. For those who haven't taken advantage of this yet, World Cup highlights and repeats of the World Junior-U23 live streams are available via the XC section of FIS TV.
Soon after the January XC update the Australian Team returned to action at the Goms World Cup in Switzerland. Each of the three Australian women scored World Cup points, with Ellen Soehol Lie 49th in the Sprint and Phoebe Cridland and Rosie Fordham 49th and 50th in the 20km. The Mixed Relay Team of Ellen, Rosie, Seve de Campo and Lars Young Vik battled to 16th place in the 4 x 5km, moving Australia up to 22nd in the overall Nation Cup rankings. A big shout-out also to our AUSXC Instagram meister Bentley Walker-Broose who raced his first World Cup since 2021 and finished a solid 70th place in the Sprint.
See FIS Results and AUSXC Instagram posts here Goms World Cup / AUSXC Instagram Goms
Action then moved to Gangwon in Korea for the 2024 Youth Olympic Games. The XC contingent of Samuel Johnson, Clancy Harvey, Satara Moon and Rosie Franzke did Australia proud, with a hard-fought 18th place in the 4x5km Mixed Relay. Individual bests included Rosie 38th and Satara 44th in the 7.5km Classic, Sam 42nd in the Freestyle Sprint, and Clancy 48th in the 7.5km Classic, all in fields of around 80 competitors. A great experience for these young athletes, we hope to see them at the World Juniors in the coming years.
See FIS Results and AUSXC Instagram posts here Gangwon YOG / AUSXC Instagram YOG
At the 2024 World Junior and U23 World Championships in Slovenia in February the Australian Team collected top 30 results in both Junior and U23 categories for the third year in a row. It's worth repeating that before this streak we've only ever had top 30 results at World Juniors once before, in 2003 (Ben Sim and Esther Bottomley). Top 30s in the U23s have been a bit more frequent - Esther Bottomley in 2006, Ben Sim in 2008, Aimee Watson in 2008-2010, Phillip Bellingham in 2014 and Casey Wright in 2017. Links to all the 2024 results are included in the article below.
The 2024 World Masters recently took place with an enthusiastic contingent travelling to Vuokatti in Finland. See below for a report from Australian World Masters coordinator Peter Lambert, including a call-out for interest in the 2025 World Masters in Switzerland.
Wrapping up this event-full update, in the past two weeks we've seen the Canmore and Minneapolis World Cups take place in North America. Given the success of these events, a question for FIS is why the Cross Country World Cup shouldn't travel outside of Europe every season, as the other disciplines do? Perhaps it's due to the availability of willing race organisers - but if not then it would be great to see the XC "World" Cup live up to its name on an annual basis.
Until next time,
Finn Marsland
Snow Australia Cross Country Director
In this edition:
- Fordham Top 20 at World U23s
- Minneapolis World Cups
- World Cup debut for Blackwell in Canmore
- World Masters
- Women of Winter: Two Sports and a career with Anna Trnka
- Save the Date - AUS Rollerskiing April 13/14
- Positions Vacant
- Snow Ready
