News
The London Ski & Snowboard Festival is making a return to Battersea Park from 27 – 30 October, and Smart Group, the new organisers, claim it is going to be bigger and better than ever.
The four-day festival will have a host of ski and snowboard related exhibitors as well as an entertainment programme which includes Team GB athletes, après ski, performances from professional ski and snowboard athletes on a 140ft ski jump, a practice slope, and a torchlit toboggan race.
A snow-sports fan was given the surprise of life when his homecare provider, Right at Home UK, teamed up with Ski Sunday presenter and Olympic commentator Ed Leigh, to arrange a visit from the former-professional snowboarder, at a specially adapted skiing session.
James McIntosh pictured after receiving his MBE in 2017
James McIntosh, a co-founder of The Lecht ski centre in Scotland, died on 15 March at the age of 71.
James, who was better known as ‘Tosh’, helped establish The Lecht in 1977 with three friends and later became the ski area’s operations director.
Staff from the Love & Piste store in East Leake headed out on to the slopes of Val d’Isère recently to try out some of the current clothing and accessories available from the ski and snowboard specialist outlet.
The new organisers of the The London Ski & Snowboard Festival are inviting visitors to escape to the mountains in the heart of the capital this October (27th – 30th).
Smart Group, a hospitality and creative event specialist, is promising the four-day festival will bring together resorts, fashion, the latest equipment and technology, Team GB athletes, and entertainment for winter sports fans and families of all ages and experience levels.
A new BMW X1 sDrive 18d car is the top prize in a treasure hunt being held in Obertauern, Salzburgerland, on 23 April (2022).
Treasure chests containing the keys to a new BMW and other prizes will be buried in the snow
The Gamsleiten Kriterium attracts more than 1,000 skiers and snowboarders who race down the Gamsleiten 2 piste to a specially marked out area where the keys to the new car are buried in the snow along with more than 30 other treasure chests containing free holidays and other prizes.
After finishing his World Cup racing season in the French resort of Méribel last Sunday (20 march), British slalom skier Dave Ryding didn’t let the snow melt beneath his feet.
Dave inspects the Kandahar trophies with former club president Cleeves Palmer
He jumped in the car and sped through the Alps to the Bernese Oberland at the invitation of the Swiss resort of Mürren and its British ski racing club, the Kandahar, which counts Dave among its members.
The Ski Company Ltd is looking for a BOAT (Boss Of All Things!) to manage all functions of one of its long-running brands, SnowSkool, which organises ski instructor courses, snowboard instructor courses, and internships.
The SPRING 2022 issue of the Skier & Snowboarder magazine is now available.
Pick up a free printed copy at your local ski and snowboard store or slope (while stocks last).
Or you can read the online version by CLICKING HERE
Bertrand de Monvallier, one of the founders of Oxygene Ski & Snowboard School, passed away recently following a 10-month battle with illness.
A statement released by the company said: “The entire Oxygene family is devastated by his loss and for anyone that had ever met Bertrand, they will understand what it means to lose someone that was so inspirational and passionate about skiing, life and the business that he and his brothers have built over the past 30 years.”
Team GB’s freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, who came eighth in the men’s halfpipe final, was competing at his third and final Olympics.
Gus Kenworthy in action during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games at Genting Snow Park. Photo by Sam Mellish / Team GB
Gus previously competed for the USA by qualifying through his American father, but he also has an English mother and was born in Essex which enabled him to switch to the GB team.
Team GB’s Ollie Davies became the first British man to compete at the Olympics in ski cross. He finished fourth in his race with only the top two progressing to the quarter-finals.
The 24-year-old from Guildford in Surrey said: I’m pretty gutted. I made a mistake at the start and I was playing catch-up from then onwards.
Despite falling on her first two runs Team GB freestyle skier Zoe Atkin finished ninth in the women’s freeski halfpipe final after scoring 73.25 on her third run. Zoe had qualified in fourth place the previous day with a score of 86.75.
Slalom skier Dave ‘The Rocket’ Ryding, who recently won Britain’s first ever world cup race in Kitzbuhel, was unable to replicate his history making heroics at the Beijing Olympics.
Dave Ryding
The 35-year-old made a small mistake during his first run which left him in 16th position. In the second run it appeared he may have pulled off something special as his time of 50.44 put Ryding at the top of the standings and in the gold medal position. But the gap to the first run’s frontrunners proved too much and saw him finish in 13th position.
Team GB’s youngest competitor at the Beijing Olympic Games, freestyle skier Kirsty Muir, finished eighth with a best score of 71.30 in the freeski slopestyle final on Tuesday.
Her team mate Katie Summerhayes, who finished seventh at previous Olympics in Sochi and PyeongChang, was one place further back in ninth with 64.75.
Although Team GB’s Katie Ormerod was left disappointed after she finished 25th in qualification for the women’s snowboard Big Air, as only the top 12 progressing to the final, her appearance in the Beijing Olympics marked a welcome return following a serious injury which almost ended her career.
Team GB’s freestyle skiers Kirsty Muir and Katie Summerhayes have both qualified in the top 12 for the slopestyle final. Muir, who came fifth in the Big Air final earlier in the Games, finished sixth in qualifying with a best run of 70.11 and Summerhayes, who missed out on making the Big Air final by one place, progressed in 10th spot with 66.56.
Team GB’s Charlotte Bankes and Olympic debutant Huw Nightingale managed sixth-place in the inaugural mixed team snowboard cross. Before the team event, Bankes finished ninth in the women’s individual snowboard cross on Wednesday, and Nightingale finished 30th in the men’s.
Team GB’s Huw Nightingale made his Winter Olympic debut in the men’s snowboard cross in Beijing on day 6 but went out in the 1/8 finals. The 20-year-old will get another chance to compete in the mixed team competition with team mate Charlotte Bankes on Saturday (12 Feb 2022).
Charlotte Bankes, one of Team GB’s brightest hopes for an Olympic medal, was left disappointed when she was just beaten into third place on the line in the quarter-finals of the women’s Snowboard Cross when only the first two finishers go through.