Cancelled races and delays took a toll on the six-event in sixteen days Cross Alps Tour this month with three races being either abandoned or decided by qualification runs only.

The Cross Alps Tour, a tour within the broader World Cup schedule, wrapped up last night in Innichen, Italy with Australia’s Sami-Kennedy Sim finishing 11th in the race and 13th in the Cross Alps rankings.

Anton Grimus placed 33rd in the time trial qualification of 53 men, one place short of the final line World Cup line up and 43rd on the Tour rankings.

Kennedy-Sim says she is happy, albeit frustrated with another 11th place.

“We lost a couple of the races due to weather and the results were just qualifying times, not racing. It was hard to get momentum,” she said.

“I’m happy to be having elements of high performance in place and to be racing.  

“The work pre-season, physically and on the mental game, has been good. The elements are all there and it’s nice to see things progress. Now it’s about putting it together.”

“I’m glad to have things to work on. That would be boring if I didn’t. I love the fight and I will keep fighting.”

“Everyone is stepping up (ahead of the PyeongChang Games),” Kennedy-Sim explained. “More people have come up from Europa Cup but there is still about 35 girls in each World Cup.”  

Kennedy-Sim will return home for two weeks to “recharge” before the tour starts again on January 12 in Idre, Sweden.

Anton Grimus will also take advantage of the break to further strengthen his chances of making the  top 32 to qualify for the PyeongChang Games. Grimus, who underwent knee surgery twice earlier in the year is currently ranked 34th.

The poet Robert Burns’ saying goes that ‘the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’.
 
Such has been the challenge for the Audi FIS Cross Alps Tour with bad conditions having affected the Ski Cross World Cups in the first three locations (Montafon, Arosa and Val Thorens), that better race weather is now high on the athletes’ wish list.
 
NSWIS Ski Cross athletes Sami Kennedy-Sim, currently ranked 11th in the world, and Anton Grimus, ranked 37th, are among those hoping for kinder skies in Innichen, Italy for the fourth World Cup tour stop.
 
Coach Shawn Fleming agreed that the start to this season has been challenging but that conditions were looking good going forward.  
 
“Italy is looking great, although I don’t want to jinx us!” Fleming said. “The weather forecast is looking fairly stable especially compared to what we have had to deal with so far through the Cross Alps Tour.”
 
“The track is ready and our first day of training is tomorrow.”


Mentally preparing for race day for events to then be called off presents its own set of challenges.
 
“Everything has been challenging thus far in the season in regards to creating any normalcy or finding some momentum,” Fleming said.
 
“It has been a season of ‘hurry up and wait’. At the end of the day we know and accept this as a part of outdoor winter sport and all athletes and nations are affected equally.”
 
“We try are best to prepare the athletes for the long days of waiting on hill and making sure they have strategies to pass the time although it then becomes a challenge to ‘fire up’ after long hours waiting.”
 
“Montafon was a very unique event due to scheduling and weather and in the end the entire event consisted of one training run and then straight in to heats with no qualification.”
 
“All-in-all it was three hours on one morning and very challenging on athletes to perform with such little time to adjust to the track.”

Anton Grimus, who is looking for Olympic qualification points and to build his confidence after losing much of last season, is happy so far and was able to begin strongly at Val Thorens last week in the eight-final.  
 
“Anton’s knee has been holding up quite well and he is definitely been able to preform day in and day out,” coach Shawn Fleming advised. “He is being treated regularly by our physio to make sure no sneaky issues arise and so far things are looking very positive.”
 
Sochi Olympian Kennedy-Sim, who has regularly been inside the six in World Cups – including a silver in Sweden earlier this year, is after race readiness to fine tune the necessary split-second decisions, saying she “can’t wait to get back in the start gate”.
Two back-to-back World Cups will be raced in Innichen, with qualification for Ladies and Men  scheduled for Wednesday, 20 December then finals on 21 December and again on 22 December.


 
You can follow the live updates HERE and on OWIA’s Twitter account HERE. Eurosport will be broadcasting the Innichen Ski Cross World Cups on 21 December at 11.30pm (AEDT) and 22 December at 11.30pm (AEDT).
 
 
 
 

There was more bad luck lined up for the 2017 FIS Ski Cross Alps Tour on Tuesday night in Arosa (SUI), as the second competition in a row was forced to be cancelled due to the inclement weather that has been hovering over the Alps for the past week.

The qualification round for the Arosa competition took place in the early afternoon on Tuesday after heavy winds forced the its postponement from Monday. And though that successful qualification round and a spirited public heat selection soon after it carried great promise into the evening, the sudden onset of a heavy snowfall threw everything that the organizers and officials could handle, and more, and after four challenging heats of the men’s eight finals the decision was made to call off the rest of the competition.

However, because the qualification phase of the competition was completed successfully for both men and ladies, according to FIS rules a final result was able to be rewarded to based on the qualification rankings.

The rankings from qualification saw NSWIS athletes Sami Kennedy-Sim in 11th place with team-mate Anton Grimus in 37th place.

After two Cross Alps events, Kennedy-Sim is in 11th place and Grimus 33rd place on the tour standings.

From Arosa, the 2017 FIS Ski Cross Alps tour moves on quickly to Montafon (AUT), where the next competition of the tour is slated to take place on Friday 15 December.

Australia's NSWIS ski cross duo, Anton Grimus and Sami Kennedy-Sim are ready fly out of the gates in Arosa tomorrow as the second leg of the Cross Alps Tour gets underway. 

After the second Val Thorens World Cup event was cancelled due to heavy weather conditions over the weekend, the pair are eager and ready to race at the Switzerland edition of the circuit, with valuable Olympic qualification points on the line. 

“I’m here to make some points for Olympic qualification because last year was a write-off pretty much," Sochi Olympian Anton Grimus said, who has returned to competition following a serious knee injury last season. 

"I’ve just got to get that confidence going now in every run I do, every day [that] goes past I get more confidence and, at the end of the day, that’s what separates the top guys I think … being confident in your skiing ability.”

Also hungry to make her second Olympic appearance, Sami Kennedy-Sim said the best way to improve her race conditioning was to get out there and line up with the world's best. 

“The best training for racing is racing," said Kennedy-Sim who was "chomping at the bit" to get out there and race at Val Thorens.

"You can’t reproduce the atmosphere or the stress without going to a race. We’ve got some important races this year and a busy next couple of weeks as well.

"To start the season off this way is not necessarily great but it’s definitely not a detriment either,” she said on the cancelled races in France.

The 29-year-old said she "can’t wait to get back in the start gate... two days off racing is too much," on her instagram account, signalling she means business heading into Olympic season. 

The next stage of the 2017 Cross Alps Tour kicks off Tuesday, December 12, with an exciting nighttime sprint format competition slated to get underway under the lights at 20:15 local time (6:15am Wednesday AEST). 

Ash Knight
olympics.com.au

Australia’s Sami Kennedy-Sim and Anton Grimus have ranked 11th and 20th respectively following the first day of the FIS Ski Cross World Cup Cross Alps Tour in Val Thorens, France.
 
After narrowly missing out on progressing through to the semi-finals and placing third in her quarterfinal, Kennedy-Sim said the start to the season hadn’t been “necessarily great but it’s definitely not a detriment either”.
 
“The best training for racing is racing, you can’t reproduce the atmosphere or the stress without going to a race,” she said.
 
“Unfortunately for some reason I had an absolute muck up and thought that I was somewhere else in the course and made a mistake that cost me going through and I almost pulled it back but not quite.
 
“I’ll take a top 12 and enjoy a day off tomorrow and rest my knee and hopefully get to race on Saturday.”
 
While training on the course on Wednesday afternoon, Kennedy-Sim had a “little training crash”.
 
“I kind of was just playing it all by ear and taking every sound as they came,” she said.
 
“Obviously the first round of that is going skiing in the morning and I felt OK skiing so I started training, training was smooth.
 
“It wasn’t really painful outside of the start features and a technical part in the bottom of the course.”
 
Grimus was at the front of the pack in his eighth final after a powerful start but ended up placing third after running “a bit wide”. Nevertheless, the Sochi Olympian said that he gave it his all “and made a pretty good effort of it”.
 
“Out of the start I gave it to them,” he said.
 
“I was right out there and I’ve been working on my starts a lot because in the past it’s something that I’ve lacked in and I got the start down.

“And then my speed kicked in which I’ve always had and I was out in front and tried to defend and had to run a different line to what I was used to so on the first negative I ran a bit wide which allowed the other guys to get in, so I was in second.”
 
The 26-year-old added that fellow competitor, Frenchman Jean Frederic Chapuis -- whom the course in Val Thorens is named after -- “skied brilliantly” during their race.
 
“He went out wide and went from third to first and showed us how it’s done,” he said.
 
“You know, it’s a positive day all in all, I’ve done some quick skiing and I’ve got the speed, my starts are quick so it’s just another step in the right direction building my confidence.”
 
At the end of the day, confidence is what is most important heading into a race – indeed it’s “what separates the top guys”, according to Grimus.
 
Kennedy-Sim and Grimus have a busy next couple of weeks as the World Cup Cross Alps Tour moves on to Arosa, Switzerland for a night time sprint event which is then followed by races in Montafon, Austria.
 
The Tour then concludes in Innichen, Italy on December 22 with a back-to-back two-race finale.
 
With Friday’s races being brought forward to Thursday due to the threat of an incoming winter storm, the pair will compete again in Val Thorens on Saturday.
 
You can follow the live updates HERE and on OWIA’s Twitter account HERE.
 
David Barden
OWIA

​

The FIS Ski Cross World Cup Cross Alps Tour kicks off in France this week and Australia’s Anton Grimus and Sami Kennedy-Sim are raring to go.
 
The pair’s training during the offseason has “been really good” according to coach Shawn Fleming, who added that he believed “we were able to tick everything off the list that we were hoping to focus on”.
 
“That is a good feeling coming in to December knowing that you haven’t missed any key sections of your training plan and hopefully this translates to fast skiing on the track,” he said.
 
Val Thorens plays host to the first races of the season and for Kennedy-Sim and Grimus it’s “where the first real test happens against all the other nations”.
 
“The beginning of the season is always exciting because they are happy to be back in the race environment, but there are lots of unknowns surrounding the first race,” Fleming said.
 
“We get to train with most of the other nations at some point in the offseason but training is training.”
 
The Cross Alps Tour sees athletes compete in Val Thorens, then on to Arosa, Switzerland for a night time sprint event which is then followed by races in Montafon, Austria.
 
The Tour then concludes in Innichen, Italy on December 22 with a back-to-back two-race finale.
 
With such a jam-packed schedule, it’s important that our Aussies are just as fit mentally as they are physically.
 
“It’s a very tight schedule which can be very physically and mentally demanding to get through,” Fleming said.
 
“Obviously this sport takes strength to manage the loads in the fast turns and also the landings of the jumps. A great strength and conditioning program in the offseason goes a long way to keeping them healthy during the busy race schedule where sometimes rest is hard to come by.
 
“Mental strength in this sport is everything, you are racing at high speeds through lots of terrain with three other people in close proximity all trying to be the fastest down the hill, so confidence and self-belief are key.
 
Just days out from the first race of the season, Kennedy-Sim and Grimus will have their first opportunity to train on the track in Val Thorens where the focus will be “getting comfortable” and “building that confidence to take into the coming days”.  
 
“Once the Cross Alps tour begins though you are in such a bubble of competition that you really start to build from day-to-day and track-to-track,” Fleming said.
 
“That is our goal in the coming weeks: to use the schedule and feed off it to boost confidence and create some real momentum in terms of performance.”
 
The 2017 FIS Audi Ski Cross World Cup Cross Alps Tour takes place from the 7th – 9th December in Val Thorens, France. You can check in for live updates HERE and also on OWIA’s Twitter account.
 
David Barden
OWIA