Lake Wanaka, New Zealand – The inaugural FIS Snowboard and Freestyle Junior World Championships came to a close Tuesday after 11 days of successful competition. The event combined snowboard and freestyle skiing in the same world championships for the first time and marked a new era in competitive snow sports, paving the way for the potential introduction of new disciplines into the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.nA total of 26 nations fielded teams for the event. The Championships also marked the first time that Association of Freeski Professionals (AFP) allocated points to a FIS World Championships, allowing competitors to accumulate points for both organizations’ world rankings, starting to pull all the different sections of the sport together.
“It is very exciting New Zealand is so pivotal in developing the future structure of these snow sports,” said Junior World Championships event director, Arthur Klap. “Where the Junior World Championships are really significant is how they have enabled freestyle skiing and snowboarding to support each other both in their growth and also their extended involvement in the Winter Olympics. As golf has shown, even well established sports can gain considerable financial benefit by being included as an Olympic sport. More importantly for New Zealand snow sports, is the opportunity that it provides for our athletes to compete at the Olympics and so gain stronger recognition internationally and domestically.”
The ski slopestyle competition held at Snow Park marked the first time the International Ski Federation (FIS) has staged a major ski slopestyle event. The idea was first proposed to FIS by Snow Sports New Zealand as an initial step toward consideration for inclusion in the Olympic Games.
“Snow Sports New Zealand deserves a lot of credit for taking a leadership role in developing freestyle skiing within FIS,” said FIS Freestyle Coordinator Joe Fitzgerald. “Slopestyle is a great spectacle, and this week’s Junior World Championships provided an ideal stage for some of the world’s top competitors. It was a big step forward for freestyle skiing.”
Sunday also marked new levels of excellence in the ski halfpipe competition. The event is currently being considered by the International Olympic Committee for inclusion in the 2014 Olympic program, and many are positive that it will make the cut following unanimous support from FIS member countries.
“Freestyle skiing has undergone enormous change in the past decade, and it’s all been driven by a new generation of skiers who have embraced these disciplines, and who have brought their own style to the sport,” said Snow Sports New Zealand (SSNZ) Chief Executive Ross Palmer. “It’s been interesting to watch how the best park and pipe skiers have gained the respect of their snowboarding counterparts, and vice versa. The cultures of the two sports are actually quite similar.”
It is this common culture, and the fact that in many instances these sports utilize the same facilities, that led SSNZ to begin discussing the concept of a combined event with FIS more than one year ago.
“Combining the sports had never been done before in a FIS championship event, so there were many wrinkles that needed to be ironed out before we could go forward with the competition,” said Palmer. “I owe a great debt of gratitude to the entire FIS Freestyle Committee for their willingness to take a few risks by trying something that hadn’t been done before. Feedback from the competitors, coaches and officials has been very supportive of doing this again in the future.”
Sarah Lewis, FIS Secretary General, added, “There is great synergy between the new Freestyle and Snowboard competition forms that use the same infrastructure for halfpipe, slopestyle and the ski and snowboard cross course. The FIS World Championships in Kreischberg, Austria, in 2015 will also feature both disciplines for the first time at a senior level, and there is significant interest to create joint World Cup events, too.”
The past 11 days of competition also included the first-ever snowboard slopestyle competition in a FIS World Championship. Like ski halfpipe, snowboard slopestyle is up for consideration for inclusion in the 2014 Olympics following proposals put forward by SSNZ and several other national ski associations to the FIS Congress to grant the sport World Championship status, a precursor for inclusion in the Olympics.
The Junior World Championships also provided an opportunity for New Zealand officials to gain international experience and learn from the international officials brought over for the event. This expertise has already seen a step up in delivery of events at the Junior World Championships and will provide valuable resource for next year’s 100% Pure New Zealand Winter Games, which were confirmed on Tuesday.
The Marc Hodler Cup, which is awarded to the most successful nation at the Championships was awarded to the USA team for freestyle skiing and the Russian team for snowboarding.