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The Swiss-based Court of Arbitration in Sport (CAS) has finally ruled on a conflict between Vanessa Mae, who represented Thailand, her father's home country, at the Sochi Olympic Games and the International Ski Federation (FIS).

The FIS had found, several months after last years' Olympics, that Mae had acquired the vital points required to allow her to compete at Sochi, at a competition staged in Slovenia which was found to have been the scene of a wide number of practices that broke competition rules. These included competitors not present at the event being placed in the results table and the timer for at least one racer who was there not being started until after she had left the gate and was already on her run. There were many other flaws in the event's organisation.

Late last year the FIS decided to revoke Mae's position in the Sochi Games, to effectively mean she was not officially taking part, and issued a four year completion ban going forwards.

The Court of Arbitration in Sport's verdict was that Mae should not have won points at the qualifying events, so would not have had enough points to qualify for Olympic competition, so the ban on her Sochi result stands.

However they decided that there was not adequate evidence that Mae was aware that the qualification in Slovenia had been rigged in her favour, so they feel she may be blameless for the situation she is in, and therefore decided to cancel the four year ban on her competing in the future.

Statement issued by the Court of Arbitration in Sport in full:

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has today issued its decision in the arbitration procedures between Vanessa Vanakorn and the Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS). In the first procedure (sanctions against the athlete), the CAS Panel found that there was insufficient evidence to hold that Vanessa Vanakorn had breached the FIS Betting and other Anti-Corruption Violations Rules (FIS BAC Rules) and as a consequence, annulled her four-year ban. However, the CAS Panel dismissed her second appeal against the FIS Council (cancellation of competitions) which confirms that she was ineligible to compete in the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

In January 2014, shortly before the cut-off date for qualification to the Sochi Olympic Winter Games, four ladies giant slalom competitions were held in Krvavec, Slovenia, one of them being listed as the "Thai Junior National Championships". Such races were organised by the Alpine Ski Club Triglav Kranj, with the support of the Thai Olympic Committee, and registered as FIS races, to give her a final opportunity to reach the level of FIS Points required for participation in the 2014 Sochi Games. On the basis of her results in such races, Ms Vanakorn qualified and participated in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games as a Thai athlete. In March 2014, the Ski Association of Slovenia reviewed the four competitions and passed a report to the FIS.

The FIS Hearing Panel found a number of breaches of the FIS BAC Rules and sanctioned five officials with one-year bans from participating in FIS sanctioned events worldwide, and Ms Vanakorn with a four-year ban from participating in FIS sanctioned events worldwide.

In November 2014, acting on the FIS Hearing Panel's decision, the FIS Council annulled the four competitions and ordered that any and all points earned by the participating competitors be deleted. Accordingly, without the points earned in the Slovenian competitions, Ms Vanakorn did not have the necessary FIS point performance level to be eligible to participate in the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games.

On 1 December 2014, Vanessa Vanakorn filed appeals at the CAS against the decisions taken by the FIS Hearing Panel on 6 November 2014 and by the FIS Council on 18 November 2014, seeking the annulment of both decisions.

The procedures were referred to a CAS Panel composed of: Prof. Dr. Martin Schimke, Germany (President), Mr Patrice Brunet, Canada, and Mr Mark Hovell, UK. The parties, their representatives, experts and witnesses were heard by the Panel at a hearing held at the CAS headquarters in Lausanne on 3 and 4 March 2015.

In its decision, the CAS Panel accepted the position of the FIS that a number of irregularities had occurred in the organisation and management of the four races in question, but could not find, to its comfortable satisfaction, evidence of any manipulation by Vanessa Vanakorn herself that justified the guilty finding and the imposition of a four-year ban. Accordingly, the decision of the FIS Hearing Panel in relation to Ms Vanakorn is annulled and her four-year ban is lifted.

Turning to the second appeal, the CAS Panel held that the competitions in Krvavec, notwithstanding the fact that Ms Vanakorn herself was not guilty of any manipulation, were so defective that their results and qualification points gained therefrom could not stand. The CAS Panel found that in annulling the competitions and the points earned therein, the FIS Council had acted within the discretion afforded to it in the FIS BAC rules. Consequently, the second appeal is dismissed and the decision of the FIS Council is confirmed which means that Vanessa Vanakorn remains ineligible to compete in the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

Glencoe ski area in the Western Highlands of Scotland has announced details of its lift operations on Midsummers day, next Sunday 21st June.

The centre says there is still about 400 metres of linked vertical snow runs available for intrepid Scottish start-of-summer skiers.

"The plan next Sunday is to meet in the Base station cafe at around 9am, grab a coffee and bacon roll and head up the Access chair at around 9.30am. The Cliffy lift will run at 10am for around 20 minutes, just long enough to get everyone up the hill," a statement from the resort reads, continuing,

" From there on you are on your own. Please note runs won't be groomed and there will be no ski patrol in attendance. Mid mountain has lots of crevasses so we would recommend only using them for access down at the end of the day. Main Basin, Spring run and Flypaper all still in great condition with lovely spring snow."

The centre has run the popular Midsummer ski sessions for several years now thanks to several successive snowy Springtimes.

Glencoe had a successful winter and continued operating its ski slopes until early May. It stopped running the lifts then more due to lack of business than lack of snow, although tourers have continued to use the area.

It will open a new tubing operation on its dry slope the next day, Monday 22nd June.

A spectacular new gondola lift being built at Obergurgl over the summer will feature an interesting attraction in its base buildings when it opens for next winter – a motorbike museum.

The new lift is located at the Top Mountain Crosspoint, is located on the Timmelsjoch High Alpine Pass Road over to Italy, 2175 metres above sea level, and a major attraction for motorcyclists – hence the idea for the museum.

Along with museum, and the new Kirchenkar mountain gondola base station, the €15m lift's base building will house an up-market table-service restaurant and the toll station for the road.
The official ground-breaking ceremony for the project took place in the presence of Italian motorbike legend Giacomo Agostini, the most successful motorbike racer of all time.

"As one of the Alps' top ski areas we always continue developing new attractions. This project is another great chance to draw even more attention to Hochgurgl," said Alban Scheiber, managing director of Hochgurgl's Lift Company, who is also a motorcycling fan who has been collecting bikes with his brother Attila for some years.

"Our future guests can take full advantage of an additional highlight as a single building represents four different purposes. The museum is dedicated to all biking aficionados. It is open all year and also makes a great bad weather alternative," he added.

The new gondola lift will feature 10-person cabins and gives quick and easy access to the Kirchenkar ski slopes and have a capacity of 2,400 mountain lovers per hour. The restaurant and first stage is scheduled to open this winter, the motorbike museum next spring.

Several ski areas in Australia have just announced they'll open a day earlier than planned for the ski season – tomorrow Friday, June 5th. One resort has announced it will run its lifts free of charge.

The decision follows a week of cold weather that has been ideal for snow making with temperatures as low as -6C at night time and snow falls of up to 30cm/a foot of fresh snow.

Australian ski areas normally open on the first weekend of June, a holiday weekend in the country to celebrate the Queen's birthday that incorporates a Monday bank holiday – this year on June 8th.

Quite often the areas have to open with little or no snow cover, but this winter has started well at most areas.

As an added bonus, Mt Buller has announced skiing will be free on Friday whilst the country's largest area, Perisher (pictured above), which begins the season under new ownership – the US resort owning giants Vail Resorts, will have 11 lifts and two terrain parks operating, is offering three days skiing for the price of two.

The first official opening of the southern hemisphere's 2015 ski season was actually today, Thursday June 4th, at Afriski, a small ski area in Lesotho, Southern Africa. They have not quite had enough snow to open yet but may do tomorrow too, as temperatures have dropped to allow snowmaking and natural snowfall is expected overnight. Afriski (pictured below this morning) is advising visitors to aim to arrive after noon tomorrow to allow time for the high pass on the way to the slopes to be cleared of the expected snow.

The biggest pre-season southern hemisphere snow falls have in fact been reported in New Zealand with more than a metre of snow at some resorts but so far none are known to have officially opened early, although some people have been hiking up to ski and board down. New Zealand areas begin officially opening at the end of next week.

It may be June but exceptional snowfall in Northern Norway has led to glacier ski areas being forced to close whilst they dig themselves out.

The country has three glacier ski fields opening for various periods from spring to autumn and they do have a reputation for starting their season each May on deep bases of snow of up to 7 or 8m. The Stryn glacier which was due to have open a fortnight ago in fact only opened a week ago after road crews took a week longer than expected to clear the road to the lifts.

The latest snowy deluge began on 31st May and has continued for three days, bring up to a reported 3m/10 feet of fresh snow to the glacier slopes.

Folgefonn, sometimes called Fonna, ski area has been forced to close whilst teams try to dig out the almost completely buried T Bar lift. Pictured above and below.

Three US resorts remain open in to June, the near year-round Timberline ski area in Oregon, Arapahoe Basin in Colorado – one of the world's 10 highest ski areas, and Killington in Vermont on the east coast. Arapahoe Basin has just announced its extending its season towards mid-June whilst Killington says it plans to stay open in to June by not opening again before then.

Killington ski area in Vermont (pictured above this week) has been battling against mother nature's springtime warming efforts to keep the skiing going in to June and cover is now so thin on their Superstar trail that the current plan is to abandon their usual May weekend opening and just open what's left on Monday June 1st for a final day of the season.

The resort has about one mile of skiing and boarding available on its Superstar trail which it piles high with snow during mid-winter in order to make it last as long as possible through the spring thaw.

Arapahoe Basin will open for at least the next three weekends it has announced, having received more than 125cm/50 inches of fresh snow in May, which saw thousands visit the area.
It has just announced it will be open from June 12-14, 2015 (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) having originally planned to close on Sunday, June 7, 2015. A-Basin opened for the season on October 17th 2014.

"With our snowy and cool spring weather, the skiing conditions are better than we have seen for years at this time in May," said Alan Henceroth, Arapahoe Basin Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. "We will be re-opening for at least one more long weekend."

Regular ski area operations will continue through Sunday, June 7. After June 7, all ski lifts and skier services will be closed Monday through Thursday. The ski area will reopen for lift-served skiing on Friday, June 12, and remain open through Sunday, June 14, with limited skier services.

North of the border Whistler has also extended its ski season through to June 7th, it then plans to close for 12 days before re-opening for summer glacier skiing and boarding.

With work underway on new lifts on the Presena Glacier above Passo Tonale in Italy, usually open for spring skiing through to June, it's believed there's currently no ski area open, with operating ski lifts and groomed pistes at least, in either France or Italy, assuming you don't include France's sole indoor snow slope at Amneville in the north East of the country where British speed skier Jan Farrell set a new indoor ski speed record last week, breaking the 65mph mark on the 620m long slope.

But French and Italian glacier areas are about to re-open for late spring and summer skiing and by the end of June, there'll be a choice of five areas operational again.

First to open, this Saturday May 30th, is Passo Stelvio in Italy, not far from Bormio - to which it is connected by a free bus service. Normally open in the summer and autumn only, its bottom lift station at 2760 metres, is the highest lift base in Europe, with trails up to 3450 metres, giving a near 700 metre vertical. The centre has 10 runs, all but one of which are graded 'red' or of intermediate/more difficult standard, the other is an easy trail.

This will be followed a week later on June 6th by the opening of the Pisaillas glacier above Val d'Isere, one of Europe's smallest summer ski areas which will operate for five weeks, weather permitting, to early July.

The larger French glacier options of Les 2 Alpes and Tignes will open two and three weeks later respectively on June 20th and 27th, 2015.

The latter date is when a second Italian summer snowsports option, Cervinia, re—opens for a 10 week spell when it will be possible to ski across the border in July and august to the year-round Klein Matterhorn snow slopes above Zermatt in Switzerland.

The Courmayeur Mont Blanc Funivie S.p.A lift company which runs the ski lifts around Courmayeur has announced that a remarkable, four year, 110 million Euro project to rebuild lift access to Point Helbronner on the Italian side of Mont Blanc is, pretty much, complete. The company says that the installations will open to the public next month on a date still to be announced.

Work to replace the lifts began in 2011 after more than a decade of planning. Originally a three-stage cable car connection the new lifts are in two stages which operate much faster and with a much higher capacity.

There are many remarkable aspects to the project and the result. These include the fact that the new cable car's cabins revolve through 360 degrees on the ascent and that the new upper station has been built to be energy self-sufficient.

In addition the Torino Hut, which is no longer directly accessed by the cable car, is instead accessed by a 154m long horizontal tunnel and a 70m vertical elevator, from Point Helbronner.
All three cable car stations have been completely re-built to designs by award winning architects.

Starting from the bottom. The all new base station is at an all new location, Entrèves (1,300m), and is a ribbed stainless steel structure with wood frames and an abundance of glass to optimize the use of natural light. It is located next to the Mont Blanc Tunnel with direct access to the A5 motorway. There is extensive underground parking (more than 330 spaces) and a bus station which will be where a shuttle service from Courmayeur stops.

From here the lift ascends to the mid station in four minutes. The mid-station is still at Le Pavillon du Mont Fréty, but with a completely new station, from there the second stage of the lift goes direct to Point Helbronner in just six minutes, by-passing the Torino Hut.

The Point Helbronner station has four levels on a small footprint with terraces cantilevered out. It has been built with super tough materials like titanium panelling, zinc plated steel and super-tough tempered glass to withstand the elements. A large circular terrace on the roof provides spectacular views of Mont Blanc and the Vallée Blanche.

Each cable car cabin is round and can carry up to 80 people, compared to 20 in the old lift cabins. The greatly increased capacity should the operator hopes, eliminate queues. The Doppelmay built lift has hi tec audio-visual facilities and the cabins which have floor to ceiling glass windows slowly revolve through 360 degrees on the ascent.