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Weekend wrap - Aussie athletes kick off Olympic season

Published Tue 26 Oct 2021

📷 | Matthew Cox at Big Air Chur


It was an exciting opening weekend of snowsports racing with some solid results from Aussie athletes as the FIS Alpine Ski, Snowboard and Freeski world cups got underway in Europe.

The best result of the weekend came from Matthew Cox, who finished just outside the top ten and couldn’t advance to the finals in the snowboarding competition at the Big Air event in Chur, Switzerland on Saturday. In front of a pumped-up crowd which made for an electric atmosphere, Cox scored 77.66 in his qualification heat, just a couple of points shy of the fifth place that would have secured him a spot in the finals run, for an 11th place overall. 

The freeskiers had already kicked off the Big Air Chur festival on Friday, on a day when heavy winds delayed proceedings and even threatened an event cancellation before competition was finally held with an adjusted format. Abi Harrigan and Cameron Waddell both made their official debut in a World Cup Big Air competition on Chur’s 40-metre-high steel scaffolding structure, finishing 22nd and 24th respectively. The Australian Freeski team is now headed to Stubai, Austria, where they will keep training ahead of the next slopestyle World Cup competition later this month.

There were a couple of debuts on the alpine side as well, as Madison Hoffman made her first ever start in a FIS Alpine Ski World Cup event and Louis Muhlen-Schulte competed in his first World Cup Giant Slalom in Soelden, Austria. Hoffman registered a DNF, prematurely ending her debut just after the first intermediate timing on a challenging course, while Muhlen finished 57th in the first run and did not qualify for the second. 

“As a whole it was a pretty good experience for me,” Muhlen said after the race. 

“Soelden is a crazy time of the year. It's a race so far removed from the rest of the season that preparation was a bit crazy going into it. Being my first GS World Cup, it was also a little daunting, but a really good experience,” he said.

“On the racing side, there were some things I was really happy with, but also some things that I have to work on in the future and places where I know I really need to improve. But as a starting point, I am happy with how it turned out. 

“As far as the experience as a whole, it was amazing to be out there and perform on such a big stage in front of such a big crowd. Personally I didn’t think I would be as nervous as I was, but for sure a bit of nerves kicked in!”

Muhlen added he was also glad to see fellow Aussie National Alpine Ski Team member Madi Hoffman make her World Cup debut in Soelden. 

“She looks like she’s firing up for the season. I trained with her prior to the race and she looks like she’s skiing really well and getting into form as well. I think she’s going to do some awesome stuff this year,” he said.

Muhlen will continue his preparation in Europe, competing in a few FIS races before possibly returning to the World Cup stage at Val d’Isere in early December.

“It’s on to bigger and better things for the Australian Alpine side,” he added as he looks forward to the rest of the year, leading up to the Winter Olympic Games.

“We’ve just got to keep working ahead of the next big events, learn from this experience and move on to the next. I’ll try to focus on what I can work on and then prepare myself even better for the next race.”

Australian athletes - results:

Chur (SUI) - Snowboard Big Air

Chur (SUI) - Freeski Big Air

Soelden (AUT) - Alpine Giant Slalom

 

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