Skier cross: motocross on skis; a freestyle terrain course of burns, bumps and turns where competitors jostle to be the first across the line.

Skier cross is one of the newest innovations in what began thousands of years ago as a means of travel in European winters. Somewhat like motocross, skier cross follows where snowboarding had already forged; into a competition combining speed and skills over freestyle terrain.

The International Ski Federation (FIS) only recently added skier cross to its stable, under the freestyle skiing umbrella, and established a world cup circuit in the 2002/3 season. Before consecration by FIS, skier cross was competed in at the X Games, skiing's new school arena. The sport itself is officially just over a decade old but versions of the mass start, free terrain race have been around since skiing's beginnings.

As with a motocross, skier cross competitors start together, usually in heats of four, jostling each other through a series of different sized corners, berms, jumps and straights to be the first to cross the finish. Competition can get physical, though interfering with another athlete can be grounds for disqualification, and over the winding course it's difficult for any racer to break away so races often go right down to the wire.

A timed qualification run is used to seed skiers into different heats, of four skiers each. Each race is limited to four starters. The top half of the finishing field in each heat then moves on to the next round in a series of quarter, semi and final rounds.

Skier cross competitors often have an alpine racing background. Primarily the aim is to go fast and training as an alpine racer gives athletes the grounding they need. With no history, this event has no dominating nation and its lack of tradition could leave the field open for all takers.

Image: VANOC/COVAN

Four years ago in Torino, Jenny Owens skied herself to ninth place in the super combined and two 29th places in downhill and super G events. Now she's getting ready to line up for Australia in the first ever Olympic skier cross, having been on the podium multiple times in recent World Cups.

She's joined by young Olympic hopefuls Katya Crema, Sami Kennedy and Scott Kneller, who have all come to the discipline by way of alpine racing. Scott has already tasted success on the Olympic course, reaching the finals of a World Cup event at Cyprus Mountain in the 2008/09 season and beating two previous World Cup winners to do so. Along with Katya Crema he has achieved World Cup results in the top 20.

Vancouver will be the first Olympic city to host a skier cross event and the crowd is sure to raise the metaphorical roof at The Cyprus Mountain venue when the athletes get on track.

Federation Internationale de Ski http://www.fis-ski.com/

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