Katya Crema, Michael Rishworth and Christian Geiger have been selected to represent Australia at the 2007 Alpine World Junior Championships, to be held in Altenmarkt/Zauchensee, Austria from March 3-11.
 
Mt Buller's Crema (18), the National GS champion and NSWIS/SSA National Development Team member, will go to the championships on the back of several months training and racing in North America, which should stand her in good stead.
 
“This is mostly about experience for her (Crema) this year,” said NSWIS/SSA coach Matt Lyons
 
 “Having only recently completed her final year of secondary school, we have spent considerable time re-developing her skill set and re-adjusting to the more competitive environment that is seen here in Canada and the US."
 
“She has coped well and made a number of the necessary changes asked of her; scoring her first NorAm Cup points, finishing 24th from 72 competitors at Big Mountain in Montana.”
 
“While the expectations for Katya are not great for this first year (at World Juniors), she should gain invaluable experience in competing at a major international event, something she will be expected to take into next year’s Juniors and the following year's World Championships and, eventually, the Olympics.”
 
For Rishworth (19, Mt Buller) and Geiger (18, Mt Hotham) the championships will primarily be about gaining experience at the international level.
 
“This team will gain and share experience while competing against the world’s best young alpine racers,” said NSWIS/SSA Men’s Program Head Coach, Mike Gould.
 
"It has been quite some time since we have had even reasonably competitive representation at the world junior championships level and the events this year will allow Australia to measure our athletes’ progress against our goal of developing talented alpine athletes to a world-class competitive level.”
 
Approximately 250 athletes between the ages of 15 and 20 from 43 nations have registered to compete at the 2007 FIS Alpine World Junior Ski Championships which will include a competition schedule of downhill, super G, slalom and giant slalom.