FIS Australia New Zealand Cup – Day 1 Photos & Results
Story and Photos by Steve Lee
Racers gather at sunrise on the top of Mt Hotham
Olympians And National Team Athletes
The FIS Australia New Zealand Cup is the highest level Alpine Ski Racing in the Southern Hemisphere. At Hotham
this week you will see Olympians and National Team athletes from 18 different nation’s competing in two Giant Slalom and two Slalom races. The field will be racing for the title of ANC Champion and to earn continental cup points with the chance to win the 31st start position in Europa cup. With a strong field of competitors its also a excellent opportunity for all the field to improve their world ranking.
Wild Weather And Delays
After a few days of wild weather, very much the norm in the last few weeks, Monday’s race day was abandoned and the weather day was used. Colder conditions blew in and some snow fell over Monday and as conditions cleared things looked pretty good for a Tuesday kick off.
Tuesday morning came with a glorious sunrise, which ski racers see plenty of arriving at the hill at 6.30am. Unlike most skiers or holiday makers who are still tucked in the wrapper punching out the Z’ds at that time of day. It is a stunning time of day, and today at Mt Hotham a busy time of day as 130 competitors, plus 50 to 60 coaches, 40 odd course workers, 30 officials and a bunch of mountain staff invaided Snake gully and Heavenly chair at first light.
Following a 30min warm up inspection was declared open with the first run of two scheduled for a 8.30am start. The Hotham race track is a demanding one, starting from the very top of the Heavenly valley chair, running along the ridge before ducking under the permanent race start hut diving into the cornice bowl across a short flat then breaking hard left down Snake Gully finishing right at the bottom of Heavenly chair. It’s a 260m vertical drop of high speed turns (about 34 of them) that takes just under a minute to complete. Any other day you would get your pass pulled for such a stunt. Today its all about speed.
This is the first of four days racing and the last of the Australian FIS series, and as said earlier the highest level of racing to be seen south of the equator.
Swede’s Kick Ass Again
Once again the men’s charge was led by the Swedish team with Niklas Rainer taking the top honors. He was challenged by ex Austrian National team skier and world cup winner (who now skis for Bulgaria) Kilian Albrecht. Kilians stronger event is the Slalom, worth checking out later in the week. Also battling it out for top spots were Oliver Jenot of Monaco and Jared Goldberg of the USA. Several aussie also were in the hunt for top 10 places including Mt Hotham’s Christian Geiger and Luke Laidlaw along with Australian continental cup team members Huge and Bryce Stevens.
Eastern European Women Are Quick
Top women were Jana Gantnerova of Slovakia, Rebecca Gunnarstedt of Sweden, Tereza Kmochova of Cheqz more checqs , French, Suisse, NZ and a couple of Aussies to round out the top ten
Competitors inspecting the course
Tereza Kmochoval
Snake Gully Race Course at Mt Hotham
