The New Chair at Squaw Valley, USA.

The freeskiers on the Freeride World Tour aren’t messing around.

They tackled the permanently closed Tram Face at Squaw Valley today on the tour’s only North American stop.

The world’s best skiers and snowboarders are battling it out again for the Freeride World Tour Championship title at four of the world’s most prestigious ski resorts, and today they made history at the third stage in Squaw Valley.

Continue reading ‘Freeride tour hits Squaw Valley’s closed terrain’

Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong succeeded in his goal of not coming last in Saturday's slalom event.

On this sixteenth day of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Ghana’s famous Snow Leopard wasn’t last in the men’s slalom event at Whistler.

Ghana’s only winter Olympic athlete, who only began skiing six years ago, gave it his all in the men’s slalom event today at Whistler Creekside. Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong succeeded in his goal of competing rather than becoming a gimmick or a side show, in finishing both runs and beating Albanian skier Tola Erjon.

The Snow Leopard came 47th of 48 who completed both slalom runs, putting him ahead of Erjon as well as six other competitors who either didn’t finish or were disqualified. Acheampong’s combined time of 2:22.60 beat Erjon’s by more than 20 seconds.

At the other end of the finishing list, Italian Giuliano Razzoli won gold with a combined total of 1:39.32 over the two runs. It was 0.16 seconds ahead of Croatia’s Ivica Kostelic. Andre Myhrer of Sweden took bronze.

Continue reading ‘Olympic Update: Italian wins slalom, Snow Leopard races, 30k photo finish’

Freeskiers love any excuse to head for the Alps.

Austria’s Zell am See-Kaprun is hosting the world’s freeskiing community this weekend at the Austrian Freeski Open.

For the first time in its history the most important freeskiing event in Austria is taking place in the holiday region between the Kitzsteinhorn and Schmittenhöhe. The four day event attracted freeski celebrities like the Swedish freeskiing legend Jon Olsson, Australian Russ Henshaw, and Bobby Brown from the USA.

The professional freeskiers are competing against each other at the ‘Slopestyle Contest’ staged in the snow park on Kitzsteinhorn, attempting to win their share of US $20,000 in prize money.

Continue reading ‘Freeskiers invade Austrian Alps’

The new lift is making a difference at Marmot Basin

The new Canadian Rockies Express lift at Jasper’s Marmot Basin is getting a little love for its impact on the ski resort.

It has recently been awarded the ‘Best Longest New Lift’ title by Ski Canada Magazine. There may not have been many contenders in Canada this year, but nonetheless the award recognises the vast improvement it has made to the ski area.

Marmot Basin’s skiers and riders now get to the top of the upper slopes in less than half the time it took previously and the lift has significantly changed the way the mountain is skied. Ski Canada also awarded the Alberta ski resort with ‘Best Off The Mark’ for their earliest opening ever, November 11, 2009.

Continue reading ‘Oh what a difference a new chairlift can make’

One of the world’s original ski websites, Ifyouski.com, has a brand new look after dishing £100,000 into website upgrades.

Now over 10 years old, and one of the UK’s leading snow-sport websites, ifyouski can trace its roots back to the paper publishing era and the 1993 book, ‘The Complete Skier.’ It was written by ex-British Freestyle team member and Harvard MBA Michael Liebreich who went on to set up completeskier.com, later renamed ifyouski.com.

The site has some 60,000 newsletter subscribers and 300,000 unique monthly visitors through the winter months.

Continue reading ‘One of the originals gets a facelift’

Travel Alberta is hoping Games will benefit tourism

When it comes to attention grabbing opportunities at the Olympics, there are no short lists as people flock to them.

It’s argued, that one could have spent these Games roaming from pavilion to pavilion and still not have enough time to see everything.
With these Winter Olympics headed to the finish line, one can only ask where did Pierre de Coubertin Olympic motto (Citius, Altius, Fortius.) focus get the interest by deep pocketed multinationals.
Continue reading ‘The road less traveled: Chasing gold, takes a life of its own outside sporting venues’

The Himalayan Ski Village was supposed to be a world-class resort near the top of the world.

SkiRebel.com has learned that plans for a major ski resort in the Indian Himalayas have suffered a new set back.

The Indian government has issued a cancellation notice for the plans, which were first launched with a wave of positive PR six years ago but have been bogged down for the past few years in legal limbo.

The Ski Village concept plan was first proposed back in 2004 by Alfred Ford, a member of the Ford Motors family. The Himalayan Ski Village project was supposed to be a major ski resort close to the established tourism centre of Manali in the Indian Himalayas, which already has rudimentary ski facilities and world famous heli-skiing.

Continue reading ‘Himalayan ski resort dream appears dead’