Ensuring future success with the Alpine Skiing National Skills Assessment

A greater emphasis on Alpine skill development in Australia’s ski resorts is set to reap big rewards in the future for Australia’s athletes.

Ski & Snowboard Australia (SSA) has been delivering the National Skills Assessment program for a number of years now, but some major changes this year is already seeing great results.

The National Skills Assessment is designed to give individual athletes a score out of 10 in the four primary skill areas of alpine skiing. The data then provides the athletes, their coaches and clubs the ability to analyse areas for improvement and come up with a plan to make changes in their skiing.

“The program has been well received but limited in who it is reaching,” Alpine Program Director Brad Wall said of the program, which had previously been held at a single location.

“So we decided to take it on the road this year to all five major resorts,” he said. “That way we could capture the majority of athletes from Under 12 to Senior level as well as any Interschools or Snowracer athletes.”

Making use of the school holiday period, the National Skills Assessment started in Perisher on 2 July and will wrap up in Thredbo at the end of July, having also spent time in Falls Creek, Mount Hotham and Mount Buller. Led by Wall along with National Development coaches Shawn Fleming and Chris McKnight, the Assessment aims to reach over 300 athletes.

Throughout Australia a larger number of athletes will access the Assessment and the valuable feedback it provides, and for the first time in Australia, the athletes will be nationally ranked based on their skiing skills. This information in conjunction with physical testing data and SSA/ FIS points will give a more complete picture of an athlete’s current abilities and future prospects. 

“It’s also a useful tool for the club administrators,” Wall said, with Club directors and coaches able to influence annual programming and skill emphasis. 

“It’s a metric they can use to measure the performance of their coaching staff. They can now set targets to lift the average of their scores. It gives their coaches something extra to work towards and more accountability. We are already seeing it in action - the clubs are spending more time on skill development before we even get there.” 

As well as measuring performance and identifying talented athletes, one of the main goals of the National Skills Assessment is to develop a stronger focus on skills. 

“We are seeking a more consistent and greater focus on skill development at a younger age,” Wall said. “Instead of just chasing gates.”

“A big reason why we are doing this now at the start of the season, is that the Australian domestic season calendar - with Interschools, club, SSA and FIS events – has so much going on. There is quite a bit of pressure for kids to run gates all the time and not spend enough time on skill development.”

What Wall and his SSA colleagues have noticed is the flow-on effect of this – that athletes are not as competitive as they get older.  

“They’ve trained a lot compared to their peers at U16 and U14,” Wall said. “They generally have more days on snow; skiing in both the Australian and northern hemisphere winter, so they are competitive on that level - but the focus is too narrow. Correct skill development at these ages, and younger is critical, it becomes much harder to make technical changes as athletes get older.”

The success of the Assessment will continue to see greater communication and greater interaction between SSA and the clubs going forward, another positive product of the program.