Messages posted by : J2SkiNews
The 95th staging of the International Lauberhorn Races take place at Wengen in the Swiss Jungfrau ski region over the coming weekend. First held in 1930, the Lauberhorn downhill course is the longest in the world, stretching 4.48 km (2.78 miles) and taking skiers about two and a half minutes to complete. Sunday will feature slalom races on the Männlichen course. The Lauberhorn ski races are among the world's most well-attended winter sports events, drawing around 30,000 spectators annually. The event spans three days, starting with a super-G race on Friday, 17 January 2025. On Saturday, 18 January 2025, the world's top athletes will compete in the renowned Lauberhorn downhill race, followed by the slalom on Sunday, 19 January. The downhill race is one of the most demanding in the world due to its length and intensity. Last year, Norway's downhill star Aleksander Aamodt Kilde had a severe crash into the fences near the race's finish and has yet to return to the circuit. Conditions look largely favourable with sunshine, light winds and low temperatures forecast for the region through the weekend. |
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The temperatures are dropping and the nights are long in January in Alberta, Canada, so the famous ski town of Banff attempts to cheer things up (Beyond the great skiing), with its annual, magical SnowDays Festival. Running this year for as fortnight from this Friday, 17 January through to 2 February, Banff National Park' SnowDays Festival will see a myriad of events and attractions. Off the slopes, visitors can watch snow sculpting artists create intricate carvings from multi-storey high snow cubes, marvel at the madness that is skijoring where cowboys, cowgirls and their horses perform trick snow jumps right on Banff Avenue. That's all part of a whole host of daytime and evening entertainment, ice walks, night lights and musical events. Banff is home to the ski areas of Norquay, Sunshine and lake Louise which offer a tri-area pass that covers one of the largest skiable areas in North America and includes public transport between the centres and from the ski town of Banff itself. Other Alberta ski areas also have special winter festivals on this month, most notably Jasper in January to the north.  |
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 Les Menuires Jan 2025 Picture taken 11-Jan-2025 Upper Slopes : Variable Conditions, Lower Slopes : Wet Snow. |
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An 80-year-old care home resident in the West Midlands has had the chance to ski down a snow slope for the first time and later expressed her delight at the experience. Former nurse Margaret Syms, a resident at Chandler Court care home in Bromsgrove said she had always wanted to try skiing but had never had the chance. The care home's team then asked for charity Disability Snowsport UK's help to make it happen at the nearby Tamworth Snowdome.
The special outing was part of the home's Wishing Tree Initiative, which encourages residents to put wishes forward, allowing them to reconnect with a past hobby or try something completely new.
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Switzerland's Arosa will play host to the 13th IceSnowFootball tournament which will see soccer stars from all over the world competing for the World Cup title. Taking place on the 15th and 16th January next week, teams from Switzerland, Germany, The Netherlands and an international all-star team will compete in what's billed as the unofficial Snow Soccer World Cup.
The competition was conceived back in 2009 by the former director of Arosa Tourism Pascal Jenny, who convinced the then sports director of VfB Stuttgart, Fredi Bobic, of his idea. Since its initial implementation in 2010, the Arosa IceSnowFootball quickly developed into an annual friends' get-together for the world of football. The unofficial snow football world championships celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2020, then missed two years due to Covid-19 before resuming in 2023.  |
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A damaging strike by the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association may be over, according to a joint statement by Park City Mountain and the Ski Patrol. The strike, which began after the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association said Park City Mountain's owners Vail Resorts had failed to move on a pay claim after nine months of negotiations, has been bringing a lot of negative publicity to the world's largest ski resort operator. Very limited terrain was open and very long queues were reported for operating lifts, with reports of very wealthy skiers being very upset at the service they were getting for their payments. A joint statement issued earlier today states:
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Europe's most southerly major ski area, Spain's Sierra Nevada, located above the ancient city of Granada and the Mediterranean sea, has had a challenging start to its 24-25 season. Despite having the country's highest slopes, it's had very little snowfall so far this winter and could only open about 10% of its runs for the key Christmas and New Year period, having already missed another key Spanish holiday week at the start of December. There have been more positive signs in the past few days however. The resort has announced that it will open its La Visera sector tomorrow, the first black-rated terrain to open this season, as well as pistes in the Veleta zone. The Antonio Zayas ski lift opening on Wednesday will give access for the first time this season to the Cordón and Panorámica slopes in the Veleta area, meaning that the Granada winter resort will have almost its entire maximum vertical of 1,100 metres skiable down from the Veleta peak. The improvement follows some fresh snowfall at last to start the week and cold temperatures allowing Sierra Nevada's snowmaking arsenal, one of Europe's largest, to fire up. The resort received 20 centimetres of snowfall on Monday's and will have exceeds 23 skiable kilometres of piste available on Wednesday, approaching 20% of its full area. |
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A 10 day period of mostly dry weather in the Alps has ended with some significant fresh snowfall reported this morning and more expected through the weekend. Les Arcs, pictured top, has reported 25cm (10") of fresh snowfall this morning. Les Menuires in the 3 Valleys has reported the biggest total so far of 60cm (24") over 72 hours. Other French resorts including Megeve, Meribel, Chamonix Mont-Blanc and Val d'Isère have each posted 16" (40cm) of snowfall so far. The avalanche danger has gone back up to 4 (high) on the scale to 5 having previously dropped to 3 "considerable" after the snowfall from the big pre-Christmas fall ended. There's been snowfall reported in Austria, Western Italy and Switzerland too but so far its closer to 10-15cm (4-6") there in most cases, although Solden has posted 12" (30cm). The coming week is looking cold and snowy across much of the Alps with regular snowfall expected. |
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