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Greek skier AJ Ginnis has become the first from his country to win an Alpine Ski World Championships medal in the 92-year history of the now bi-annual competition.

Ginnis was lying in second after the first run and held on to silver as Austria's Manu Feller, who was leading after the first run, ended up out of the medals.

Alexandros Ioannis Ginnis (28) was born and grew up in Athens skiing at Greece's leading ski area of Mt Parnassus but moved to the US aged 15 and was part of the US team at the 2017 Alpine World Ski Championships in St Moritz but was later dropped from the team after string of injuries and went to race for his birth nation. He had previously posted his best-ever result just over a year ago in the final race before the Beijing Olympics, taking second having never made a top 10 finish before.

In a rollercoaster final event of the 2022-23 Alpine World Ski Championships in Courchevel and Meribel, Norway's Henrik Kristofferson, who had been in 16th place after the first run, took gold as the 15 skiers starting after him failed to beat his combined two-run time.

Beyond the headline winners and losers the 2023 Alpine World Ski Championships some other noteworthy facts and stats were achieved.

Following their first women's World Cup win in almost five decades by Valérie Grenier in January, Canada took a record four medals including two golds with Laurence St. Germain winning the slalom and James Crawford the gold, placing them join third on the medal table with the US and Italy, behind Switzerland and Norway. Unusually Austria did not win any events.

The Championships were also unusual in that every race took place as scheduled over the two week period under clear skies without the problems that include rain or snowfall, gale force winds or too little snow that often impact race timings.

Meanwhile Mikaela Shiffrin, currently lying one-win behind the 86 World Cup wins total of Ingemar Stenmark, moved into top (or second) spot for all-time World Championships medals with two silvers and a gold at Courchevel Meribel. She had previously been tied with another Swedish great, from the same small ski hill as Stenmark, Anja Pärson, but her new total of 14 World Championship medals is now the most in the "modern era" and since World War II.

However, going back to the first Championships in the early 1930s, when they were staged annually although with only three events, Germany's Christl Cranz won 15 medals, 12 of them golds.

Ruka ski area in Finland is expanding its terrain with four new runs served by a new high-speed chairlift on the east side of the fell in the Masto sector.

Work will begin in May to install Finland's first eight-person high-speed chairlift, the Masto Express, and to create four new ski slopes. The lift will also be the fastest in Finland with a speed of 6 m/s and carry up to 4,000 skiers per hour to the top of Masto. It will replace two existing drag lifts.

The four new slopes will improve connections to the slopes of Vuosseli and Kelo, and in addition, a run named Snow Valley (Tykkylaakso in Finnish) and described by the resort as "experiential" will be built in the area.

The area's snowmaking capacity will also be significantly strengthened with the purchase of 40 new snow cannons. Currently Ruka has around 100 snow cannons, so the snowmaking capacity will increase by almost a half due to the investment.

"The Masto area has favourable conditions for the formation of machine made snow that accumulates on the trees, and we wanted to highlight this feature by creating a snow-crowned trees -themed adventure slope. The slope reformations, together with the fast and effortless chairlift, will bring Masto's appeal to a whole new level," said Rukakeskus Ltd operational director Matti Parviainen says.

The developments are the latest in more than 20 years of working to expand Ruka in line with the resort's masterplan created by the Canadian Ecosign resort planners. According to the masterplan the area has been developed into a year-round, internationally attractive mountain resort. Two pedestrian villages and a network of Express chairlifts have already been implemented in Ruka, as well as a comprehensive service offering around the car-free resort. They also tie in with a more recent priority the resort has outlined to: "…develop into the world's best ski resort for families."

"The early season of Ruka has been challenging due to the high price of electricity, the uncertainty of domestic demand and also the snow situation. However, spring looks good and the European union co-funding we received ensured the realization of the investments despite the world situation," said Ruka's Ville Aho.

The work is due to be complete for a December opening and will involve a €14 million investment that is being co-funded by the EU.

While much of the ski world has been reporting fairly dry conditions recently, ski areas in the Rockies and further south in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of New Mexico have been posting big new snow accumulations from the latest storm.

Colorado's Wolf Creek Ski Area (Pictured above this week) reported 29 inches (72cm) of fresh snowfall in the latest storm, taking its all-natural snow depth past the 1oo inches/2.5 metre mark to 102 inches at its midpoint with Telluride another big winner. Taos, further south in New Mexico, posted 26 inches (65cm) in 48 hours.

Skies have now cleared but there are more big snowfalls forecast for the Rockies over the coming week.

The news from North America isn't all good though, on the East Coast, after exceptionally low temperatures at the start of the month, the region is returning to seeing warm weather spikes, as it did in December and January. Whitetail Resort in Pennsylvania is one of several forced to temporarily close due to warm, wet weather.

Currently the world's deepest snowpack is at 5.9m (just under 20 feet) at Mammoth Mountain in California, although that's down 70cm (2.3 feet) on the start of the month. Alta in Utah has the deepest base in the Rockies at 343cm (11.5 feet).

After a year of largely pandemic related delays, The Matterhorn Glacier Ride II, a state-of-the-art gondola connecting the Klein Matterhorn above Zermatt with Testa Grigia in Italy, has an opening date: 1 July 2023.

The new 3S cableway will create the highest border crossing in the Alps making it possible to travel within cabin lifts between Zermatt in Switzerland and Breuil-Cervinia in Italy.

The new lift will climb from the Testa Grigia valley station at 3458 metres up to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise mountain station at an altitude of 3883 metres above sea level, connecting with the Glacier Ride I lift ascending on the Zermatt side.

"Visitors will be able to make this passage from Italy to Switzerland and vice versa for the first time ever without getting their feet wet. The new section will close the last remaining gap between Zermatt and Breuil-Cervinia and make the long dreamt-of vision of the highest Alpine crossing by cableway a reality," a spokesperson for Zermatt's lift company explained.

The next few weeks will see the completion of the final concreting works at the valley station and the installation of electrical equipment. Since the beginning of February 2023, work has been taking place on the cable winch. This is one of the most dramatic phases of the construction and will take around three months. Then, at the beginning of May 2023, the first gondolas will be delivered, and various assembly and commissioning tasks will be carried out to get the new 3S cableway ready for use.

Stressing that the new connection will be priced for "exclusivity and quality of experience" rather than for mass transit, Zermatt Bergbahnen CEO Markus Hasler, commented,

"From 2024, there will be a luggage service to make the trip across the Alps comfortable and convenient. A variety of attractions await on the peaks, including the SnowXperience Plateau Rosa around the Testa Grigia valley station and the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise near the mountain station on the Klein Matterhorn."

www.matterhornparadise.ch/alpine-crossing

Even before there was a James Bond book on movie franchise, author Ian Fleming stayed in Kitzbühel as a young man in the late 1920s.

Fleming left the Royal British military academy and his mother then sent him to Kitzbühel to improve his language skills in German for a career in the Foreign Service. He lived in what was then a guest house but the 5-star Tennerhof Gourmet & Spa Hotel and also attended a private school in the resort. You can book to stay in the 'Ian Fleming - James Bond Double Room 007' at the Tennerghof where Fleming had his digs.

In a further celebration of Fleming's Kitzbühel connections, a group of predominantly Austrian and German Bond-fans have been organising a special 007 themed festival each winter over the past decade or so, with only the pandemic delaying the return of Mr Bond.

This spring though, the 11th edition of the James Bond themed 'Fireball' event returns to the Austrian Tirol, taking place from 10-12 March 2023.

The exclusive James Bond event's schedule includes a sophisticated cocktail party, a Blackjack tournament at the casino, a themed ski race, and a gala dinner.

This year's Fireball event will focus on the film "Octopussy", set largely in India and will see the Alpine region transformed with bright colours, exotic smells and vibrant costumes.

Scandinavia's largest ski areas operator, SkiStar, have announced 598 million SEK (about £47m) in Hemsedal, Norway.

The biggest part of this spend will go on the new Lodge Express high-speed, six-seat chairlift, which will be operational next winter. Money is also going on more efficient snowmaking and ski slope improvements.

The new Lodge Express lift will start from SkiStar Lodge and take skiers and boarders on a 1,733 metre ascent up into the facility, increasing capacity to 3,000 people per hour, with skiers no longer needing to ride the bowl lift through the children's area to get to the top. However, a new bowl lift will also be built adjacent to the terrain park.

"We finally get better capacity in the ski system, and thus even more memorable mountain experiences for everyone who visits us. This means a lot for Hemsedal as a destination, both winter and summer," commented Andreas Smith-Erichsen, destination manager at SkiStar Hemsedal.

The new lift is also part of a group strategy to develop their mountain destinations into increasingly year round attractions, albeit with the winter season still the biggest business.

"To ensure future mountain tourism and satisfied guests, we invest in better skiing experiences here and now. Therefore, it feels very good that we can present a new express lift in Hemsedal already next winter," commented Stefan Sjöstrand, managing director and CEO of SkiStar AB.

Crans Montana is offering a special deal to skiers aged 65 and older every Wednesday and Thursday.

The Swiss resort offers a day pass for 39 Francs, and throws in a voucher for a free pasta dish at it Cry d'Er, Violettes or Arnouva mountain restaurants. It calls the offer the 'White heads' deal.

An adult day pass bought at the ticket office normally costs 89 Swiss Francs so the deal represents a saving of over 50% even before the free pasta ("drinks not included"), although the resort also offers advanced dynamic pricing which can bring the ticket price down as low as "from 25 Francs" the resort's website claims.

Ski resorts traditionally offered discounted tickets for older skiers from the 1960s to 1990s, and sometimes free skiing to those over 70 or 75, but over the decades, as skiers have kept skiing later in life, these offers have become less generous or disappeared completely.

Crans Montana is offering a special deal to skiers aged 65 and older every Wednesday and Thursday.

The Swiss resort offers a day pass for 39 Francs, and throws in a voucher for a free pasta dish at it Cry d'Er, Violettes or Arnouva mountain restaurants. It calls the offer the 'White heads' deal.

An adult day pass bought at the ticket office normally costs 89 Swiss Francs so the deal represents a saving of over 50% even before the free pasta ("drinks not included"), although the resort also offers advanced dynamic pricing which can bring the ticket price down as low as "from 25 Francs" the resort's website claims.

Ski resorts traditionally offered discounted tickets for older skiers from the 1960s to 1990s, and sometimes free skiing to those over 70 or 75, but over the decades, as skiers have kept skiing later in life, these offers have become less generous or disappeared completely.