Australia’s ski cross athletes have spent the early part of this week in Mt Washington, on Vancouver Island, training alongside the Swedish and Finnish teams.
 
They start official training on the Cypress Mountain course tomorrow (Friday), with the men’s event scheduled for Sunday 21 and the women’s for two days later.
 
Although bad weather ruled out one day of training, the team returned to Vancouver happy about two days of quality training.
 
“There was a whole course set up but we decided to focus on the starts,” said Katya Crema.
 
“In the start we had two Wu-Tangs (a wall of snow akin to a halfpipe wall) and it was basically an exact replica of what we think the Cypress course will be so it was perfect training.
 
“We got back into the competitive environment (with the other teams) and we were pulling starts with four of us at a time so it was really good training.”
 
Crema has been on the course before, at the pre-Games World Cup last February.
 
“Last year it was my first World Cup coming out of knee reconstruction, so it was pretty intimidating.
 
“It’s the biggest course by far on the circuit, the jumps are pretty big. But, it’s a really exciting course and now that I feel way more comfortable on my skis, I’m really looking forward to hitting those jumps.”
 
Crema will be joined by Jenny Owens in the women’s event, while Scott Kneller will represent his country in the men’s competition.

Barry White
AOC – Cypress Mountain