J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

(Sir John Ritblat)

Just days before the start of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, London legacy leaders Delancey announced they are to provide British Ski and Snowboard with the platform for the current Games but also future World Championship and 2018 Olympic success.

Delancey - a specialist real estate investment advisory business - have signed a ski and snowboard wide sponsorship agreement which will see Delancey extend their current sponsorship, currently limited to the British Alpine Ski Team, to becoming the Headline Sponsor for British Ski and Snowboard.

The deal encompasses funding for all teams, including Alpine, Snowboard, Freestyle and Cross Country. This extended commitment to the future of British snowsports will give British Ski and Snowboard's elite athletes funding until May 2016.

Delancey's investment will support the training and development programmes for upcoming and established British athletes. It will be vital for those working towards the 2014 Games and will also reach younger stars, giving them the opportunity to pursue their passion via the provision of facilities and training in the UK and internationally.

The headline sponsorship comes in addition to Delancey's title sponsorship of the Delancey British National Alpine Championships in Meribel this spring.

"With exciting young talent to watch at the upcoming Olympics, such as Sheffield born James Woods who honed his skills on a local dry ski slope, and new prime-time TV shows such as 'The Jump', snowports have become more popular than ever before," said Jamie Ritblat, Delancey's Founder and CEO, "However, if we are to inspire and create success internationally, we need to provide the financial resources to do that."

"Delancey is delighted to be able to help not only young people, who have demonstrated their potential, but also those whose international pedigree is already evident, backing them in training and competition at world-class level," added Sir John Ritblat, Chairman of Delancey's Advisory Board and a long term supporter of British snowsports has also been involved with British skiing for over 36 years and was last year appointed President of British Ski and Snowboard (BSS), "I am thrilled to be able to provide the support they so readily deserve from a young age, and to ensure Team GB continues to be a leading force in winter sports."

"Delancey's support, provided through the generosity of Jamie, and Sir John, during the last four years has been invaluable," said BSS Chief Executive Dave Edwards, "This new, exciting, arrangement will enable us to continue the work that we have started and will help us to create an even stronger team of athletes who can win multiple medals in Korea in 2018 and win World Cup and World Championship medals on their way there." teambss.org.uk

Along with possible terror attacks, potential earthquakes, criticism of excessive spending and any issues arising from anti-gay laws, the Sochi Olympics faced a possible practical problem of too little snow – an issue which affected some venues at the the Vancouver Games four years ago, particularly Cypress Mountain, leading to last minute helicoptering in along with truck convoys of the white stuff from higher altitudes and spectators being limited at the venue.

The ski slopes above the warm city of Sochi on the Black Sea coast tend to receive either abundant snow, or almost no snow, and the ski areas had been stock piling last year's stuff and limiting pre-Games slope access in order to maintain stocks.

But with just a week to go it looks like all fears of too little snow were unfounded, the main venue for downhill skiing events, Rosa Khutor, reports 2.7 metres on upper slopes and a healthy base at the bottom too.

In fact with another foot of snow reported in the last 24 hours the issue may begin to be one of too much snow.

"They will certainly have a big task clearing the snow but the area has been very well prepared for such a scenario," an FIS employee told J2Ski.

For our 1,000th news story, it's nice to bring good news - Austria has finally received a good dump of snow!

This would have been apparent for anyone watching the Hahnenkamm races over the weekend, which Kitzbuhel managed to stage despite challenging conditions, moving from too little snow for much of the past two months, top receiving nearly half a metre in 72 hours over the weekend.

Other lower elevation areas transformed by the fresh snow have includes Innsbruck, Seefeld, the Skiwelt and St Johann in Tirol.

The band of heavy snow - which has also covered much of Europe's ski areas, has extended north to German ski areas like Ruhpolding and Oberstdorf which were, if anything, even more badly in need of snow. World cup races planned for former Olympic and World championships host Garmisch Partenkirchen had had to be moved to Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy.

Back in Austria, big snowfalls of 20-40cm in 24 hours have bolstered the likes of Lech, St Anton, Saalbach and Zell am See among many others.

As we have been pointing out in our weekly snow reports, not all Austrian resorts have been suffering and the country's glacier ski areas (and it has more than any other) and other high altitude resorts like Ischgl and Obergurgl,have had a fairly normal winter and currently have healthy 2-3 metre bases on upper slopes.

Although Klosters have their annual piglet race every New Year, there is a lamentable lack of pig related events in Europe's ski areas each winter.

But that error in planning is to be put right in the French Pyrenees this Saturday, 25th January 2014, at the ski resort of St Lary (saintlary.com) where a festival to celebrate the famous black pigs – or 'Porc Noir de Bigorre' will take place.

Various workshops will be taking place during the morning (10am-1pm) with farmers showing their traditional working techniques and introduction to the Porc Noir de Bigorre.

Saint-Lary and the valley d'Aure are famous for the Porc Noir de Bigorre – it's a high quality product.

Then, the day will continue around a banquet with meals unsurprisingly based on the Porc Noir de Bigorre and on in to the evening, the menus in the village's restaurants will be adapted to the theme of the festival with special menus / tapas with Porc Noir de Bigorre.

Along with the 19 members of the British squad announced to compete in the Sochi winter Olympics in just over two weeks' time this morning, the world famous violinist Vanessa Mae has been announced as the 20th Brit to compete at the Games.

Only Mae, who was born in Singapore and has lived in Zermatt since 2009, is not part of the British squad and will be racing for Thailand, the first person ever to do so in downhill skiing, and racing under her natural father's name as Vanessa Vanakorn, he is from Thailand.

35 year old Mae has been a keen skier since a young child and had expressed her desire to race for Thailand (being unable to reach the qualification standard to join the UK team) for several years.

Under IOC rules, racers from countries who do not have a competitor in the world top 500 can still take part if they reach a certain qualification standard. Thailand have no one in the top 500 in any snow sport and Mae, who is reported to rank just outside the world top 3,000 in giant slalom, completed in four back-to-back ski races in Slovenia at the weekend and is reported to have just made the standard required from her race results.

Michael Schumacher's condition is no longer regarded as 'critical' according to his manager Sabine Kehm.

The seven-time F1 world champion continues to be treated in the Grenoble University Hospital after suffering severe head injuries in a skiing accident in the 3 Valleys at the end of December. He is believed to remain in a medical induced coma which doctors put him under more than three weeks ago, in the hours immediately after his accident.

Sabine Kehm's statement that Mr Schumacher was in a "stable condition" was the first time that his condition was not described as "critical."

Mr Schumacher's family have also released a statement via the racing star's website: michael-schumacher.de

The message thanks fans for their on-going messages of support, including a decision by local football clubs to display a banner before their match at the weekend which read, "Get well soon! You can do it, Michael!"

"We are deeply touched by all the messages to get well soon for Michael which still are being sent. That gives us strength. Thank you all so much …We all know, he is a fighter and will not give up," the Schumacher family's message says.

The Independent newspaper has reported that Michael Schumacher is one of the world's leading benefactors having given more than €50m of his personal wealth to charities that include UNESCO, UNICEF and Childline, as well as helping aid programmes in Senegal, Sarajevo, Peru and following the 2004 Tsunami disaster in which his own bodyguard and his bodyguard's two sons were killed.

There's been fresh snow across most of Austria in the past 72 hours, improving conditions across the country.

However as January wears on without significant snowfalls for some lower elevation resorts and some sports events showing white ribbons of machine made snow on lush green valley backgrounds, some of the Austrian resorts that are having average to good seasons so far for snow cover have been hitting back with mini PR campaigns,

"If you think that the winter of 2014 takes its time getting started, you can't have been on the Stubai Glacier yet," said a statement from the famous glacier ski area close to Innsbruck in Tirol, one of eight in the country open from late spring, summer or autumn skiing.

"With a total snow depth of two metres and 20 centimetres of fresh powder snow that's been added over the last couple of days, the pistes and downhills on the Stubai Glacier present themselves in a TOP state with a NATURAL SNOW BONUS to go with it!" the statement continued, warming to the theme and using caps to stress the key points.

And while conditions certainly remain 'challenging' for many of Austria's lower elevation ski areas, the natural snowfall has been fairly abundant on the country's higher slopes.

On the Pitztal glacier for example, the snow lies 2.7m (nine feet) deep and there's been 40cm of fresh in the past week. Stats for Obergurgl and Solden are similar – with more than a foot of new snow each and 1.6 and 2m bases respectively.

Today is the third World Snow Day, a worldwide initiative by the international Ski Federation to promote snow sports and the love of snow particularly to the next generation.

At the last count 610 different organisations were organise events and promotions (such as free skiing) in 35 countries right around the northern hemisphere and even on dry slopes in the southern hemisphere too.

Some of the countries who have really taken World snow Day on board include Norway where they're repeating last year's 'Apen Bakke' (Open Day) and 72 resorts have offered free skiing to an estimated 120,000 participants. In Austria 138 resorts have offered ski school for children for as little as five Euros and there have been free ski and snowboard lessons from 37 ski and snowboard schools in Poland.

Scotland also took part in World Snow Day, more actively than in the previous two years, thanks to the superb snow conditions in the western and central Highlands.

Events included the UK's first Zibob-Cross racing for adults and children, igloo-building demos, snowman-building competition and free sledging at Glencoe; an Olympic "snowball coconut" shy, Olympic fancy dress fun race, ski demos and ski and snowboard taster sessions at Glenshee; free hot chocolate for the best skier, boarder and sledger fancy dress costumes and half price offers – ski or board for the price of a gondola ticket – at Nevis Range; and ski race coaching taster sessions, snow-shoeing and ski and board demos at CairnGorm. Both Nevis Range and Glenshee are also organising snow sculpting competitions. Scotland's other real snow ski area, Snow Factor in Glasgow, is also offering free taster lessons, discounts and pre-booked free sledging for kids with a paying adult.

"Although we have had plans in place in previous years, this is the first time the mountain ski areas have had good snow for the day itself to allow us to offer exciting, fun events to 'bring the children to the snow' which is the stated aim of World Snow Day," said Chair of Ski-Scotland Heather Negus.

"The interest in World Snow Day is growing at a phenomenal rate. The first edition had 225 events, the second year included 435 events and now we have an astonishing 610 events," FIS President Gian Franco Kasper, "The dedication and creativity of the local Organisers has been outstanding and our sincere congratulations go to all of them. We hope all the children and families that take part have an exciting day that they will remember for years."