Australia's winter sports athletes commence northern hemisphere competition this week, with the Australian Men's Curling Team undertaking the first stage of their quest to qualify for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.
Australia's winter sports athletes commence northern hemisphere competition this week, with the Australian Men's Curling Team undertaking the first stage of their quest to qualify for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.
Alpine skiers Craig Branch and Jono Brauer will begin their World Cup campaigns next weekend, November 24/25, while the Olympic Winter Institute short track speed skaters will be in action in Holland.
And the end of November will see the first race of the 2008 Skeleton World Cup, with Melissa Hoar, Emma Lincoln-Smith and Michelle Steele all sliding on the Calgary Olympic track.
Australia's attempt to qualify its first Olympic curling representatives gets underway later today at the Pacific Curling Championships in Beijing, with the four-man team of Hugh Millikin, Steve Hewitt, Sean Hall, Steve Johns and Ian Palangio taking on national teams from New Zealand, China, Japan, Taiwan and Korea.
The top two nations in the tournament will earn the right to a place at the 2008 World Curling Championships, the next step on the road to Vancouver 2010 Olympic qualification.
Twelve months ago, alpine skiers Craig Branch and Jono Brauer both incurred season-ending injuries at the second World Cup of the season in Beaver Creek, Colorado.
Branch, 30, has fully recovered from the anterior cruciate ligament he sustained, while 26-year-old Brauer has also overcome his achilles tendon injury.
On Saturday they return to North America to resume their World Cup careers at the Canadian resort of Lake Louise, skiing a downhill and a super G.
Four days later they will once again tackle the Birds of Prey course at Beaver Creek that was their undoing last season, this time competing in downhill, super G and giant slalom events.
Three of the OWI short track speed skating team members - Alix-Myra Anderson, Lachlan Hay and Jeremy Beck - will take to the ice in the Dutch city of Heerenveen in the coming weekend.
Anderson made a very promising start to her World Cup career in Harbin, China, in October, making the semi-final round in her second 1500m outing to finish in 15th place overall in a field of 34 skaters. Beck and Hay have both posted top 20 results.
Finally, Michelle Steele, Emma Lincoln-Smith and Melissa Hoar will represent their country in the opening skeleton World Cup in Calgary on November 29, then contest two further rounds in Park City, Utah, on December 6 and Lake Placid, New York, on December 14.
Steele became the first Australian to win a skeleton World Cup medal last year when she finished in second place in Nagano, Japan. She ended the second season of her career in 10th place on the World Cup standings.
Hoar also had an impressive top ten result last season, placing seventh behind Steele in Nagano, and ending the season in 18th place on the standings, despite missing three of the eight events on the schedule.
Lincoln-Smith was one place higher on the end of season rankings, with a best result of 11th in Winterberg, Germany.
Mid-December will see the mogul skiing team kick off their season in Tignes, France, while the aerial skiing team will compete in two events in China.
The Institute's snowboard athletes will have to wait until the New Year before they get any World Cup action.