7 October 2021

Dear Alpine Members (past and present),

With the domestic winter now officially over, it's a good time to reflect on another season full of changes and challenges. Our clubs and resorts had to face repeated lockdowns and disruptions of training opportunities, however what has stood out to me is the resilience of our clubs, coaches, athletes and families as they made the best of an uncertain landscape. It’s this resilience that leaves me confident we can succeed in reaching our goals in the future. The end of the season provided a bright spot for many of our athletes and clubs, who were able to resume training under some great conditions and take advantage of every opportunity available to them. This to me is how success is born and goals realised.

With the landscape in Australia rapidly changing and international travel looking more likely in the coming months, I hope many of our athletes will have access to training opportunities in the northern hemisphere. We will continue to update the community through Snow Australia's channels as opportunities become clearer.

Cheers,

Shawn.

Shawn Fleming
Alpine Director

With less than a month to go until the first FIS Alpine Ski World Cup event of the season, Madi Hoffman is one of the young Australian talents preparing for the opening Giant Slalom in Soelden. 
 
A member of the Snow Australia National Alpine Ski Team since 2016, Hoffman is coming off a good 2020/21 season that saw her take part in her third World Junior Alpine Championships and achieve some highlight results, including a second place in slalom at the U.S. Nationals. 
 
But the upcoming season will be like no other for the 21 year old, who is set to make her FIS World Cup debut on the Austrian glacier.

With less than 150 days to go to the 2022 Olympic Winter Games and the calendar winter officially over, Australian snow sport athletes are already preparing for the start of the Northern season, but few are looking forward to returning to World Cup racing more than two-time Winter Olympian Sami Kennedy-Sim.

The 33-year-old ski cross athlete is coming off a long recovery from an elbow injury she suffered in training last December, just days after securing her second career World Cup medal in Arosa, Switzerland. 

If you are planning on travelling overseas to train or compete during the northern winter please make sure you visit Snow Australia's Competing Overseas page to fully understand your membership, insurance and event entry requirements before travelling.

Last week FIS held online meetings of its Alpine Committees, to discuss rule changes and proposals ahead of the Extraordinary FIS Congress scheduled to take place online on the 8 October 2021.

For alpine skiing, one of the key items on the agenda was the confirmation of the Alpine event schedule for the upcoming season, as the Audi FIS World Cup is due to open in Soelden, Austria, with the traditional women’s and men’s Giant Slalom on 23-24 October. The proposals for the women’s and men’s calendar have been drafted and will be up for approval at the FIS Congress.

Below is an update regarding the changes implemented by FIS surrounding Fluorinated Wax Products.

Dear Snow Australia Athletes, Officials and Personnel,

As you may be aware, FIS has prohibited the use of any wax products containing certain fluorocarbons at all FIS events from season 2021/2022 onwards.

With the health risks and environmental concerns connected to fluorine waxes, FIS is committed to introducing a full fluor ban and to developing testing methods to ensure fluor-free competitions in the future.

Below is an update regarding the changes implemented by Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) around Glucocorticoid (cortisone) injections in-competition.

SIA advise you that from 1 January 2022, all Glucocorticoid (GC), “cortisone”, injections will be prohibited in-competition. This is a new ruling, making their classification consistent with oral GC preparations.

GC injections are permitted out of competition, however, most commonly used GCs have a wash-out (clearance from the body) period of between three and five days while some types of GCs can stay in a person’s system for up to 60 days for intra-muscular injection. This means that some injections given before competition can be detected in an in-competition sample.

Snow Australia today published the Year 12 2021 Interschools Snowsport Honour Roll to acknowledge 274 Year 12 students from 76 schools across Australia who missed the opportunity to compete in the 2021 Interschools Snowsport Championships due to COVID-related event cancellations. 

National Interschools Chair Steve Cooper said that the Honour Roll is a significant record of our schools commitment to snowsports.

“The cancellation of the 2021 Interschools Championships was very disappointing for everyone involved in the snow sports industry.

Just over a year ago the snow sport community was shocked at the news that Australian 3-time Olympian and Alpine Ski legend Steve Lee had suffered a major stroke at home in Falls Creek. 

Steve Lee is a loved and respected member of the Snow Australia community, a positive, determined individual with a passion for skiing and a genuine enthusiasm for the mountains. In 1985 he made history becoming only the second Australian alpine skier ever to claim victory on the FIS World Cup circuit in Furano, Japan, in addition to donning the green and gold at three Winter Olympics between 1984 and 1992.

With the start of the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 scheduled for February 2022, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announces the launch of a new interactive education course on its Anti-Doping Education and Learning Platform (ADEL) for athletes and coaches aiming to attend the Olympic Winter Games.

This latest ADEL course, entitled ‘ADEL for Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022’, was again developed by WADA in collaboration with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Testing Agency (ITA), and further demonstrates the organizations’ commitment to collaborating with one another in order to educate and support athletes and their coaches in the build-up to the Games.