Alpine Director Update - June 2025

Dear Alpine Community,

The opening weekend was a great start to the season with mother nature providing 50+ cm of snow across all resorts. With favourable temperatures for snowmaking, all the resorts have been able to continue to open terrain. I recommend taking advantage of this great start and getting up to log some miles, dust off the cobwebs and get ready for the start of your club programs. This is also a great time to take your dryland training to the next level with SnowReady to maximise every run out on the hill.

The annual Snow Australia Awards were a great night as always, getting to catch up with other athletes and look forward to the winter approaching. It was also a time for some of our athletes to have their moment and be recognized for their strong performance over the last year. Congratulations to all our athletes who competed this past year and a special mention to those finalists in Alpine and Ski Cross.

Madi Hoffman – Female Alpine Athlete of the Year
Louis Muhlen-Schulte – Male Alpine Athlete of the Year
Phoebe Heaydon – Junior Alpine Athlete of the Year

Kyra Wheatley – Female Ski Cross Athlete of the Year
Liam Michael – Male Ski Cross Athlete of the Year
Duncan Cowan – Junior Ski Cross Athlete of the Year

The 2025/26 National Alpine & Ski Cross Teams were recently announced with 20 successful athletes attaining the milestone. Among veteran athletes such as Harry Laidlaw, Madi Hoffman, Greta Small and Louis Muhlen-Schulte there were also 3 new names added the team for the coming year. In Alpine, athletes Sophie Mahon and Felix Sachs were both elevated to team status, with Sophie achieving personal best results in Slalom and Felix having an outstanding debut FIS season including an appearance at World Junior Championships. On the Ski Cross front, Kyra Wheatley elevated her status after a terrific debut at World Cup this season achieving 2 Top 16 results, helping her bid towards the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milano Cortina Italy. Another first-time team member announced was Duncan Cowan, following an outstanding NorAm season which saw him take 5 victories from 6 starts and secure the overall title for 2025. I congratulate all the athletes named to this year’s team and look forward to working closely with them over the coming months.

On the heels of the National Teams announcements, we also ran an Alpine and Ski Cross camp off the back of the ETP camp at the NSTC in Jindabyne. This camp was a combination of Alpine and Ski Cross athletes named both to the National Team as well as those Emerging Talent Program athletes. It was a great opportunity for those athletes to come together for 3 days, share experiences, do physical assessments, and engage in conversation around high performance behaviours. There was also some fun to be had in the acro centre showing off their gymnastics and trampoline skills while taking part in a very entertaining obstacle course challenge created by the athletes themselves!

I am very much looking forward to getting out on the slopes and travelling across the resorts over the coming weeks. I will be in Perisher next week for a couple days of staff training working across both coaching and event staff. I will then head down to Falls Creek for some coach education training, July 1-5th, before continuing to Mt Buller, July 7-11th to work with the club coaches, athletes and parents. Continuing my Victorian tour will be a stop in Hotham, July 12-16th, to meet with club leadership and spend some days out on the slopes with athletes and coaches, along hopefully with some time getting to talk with parents. From there I will return home to Jindabyne and look forward to many days up at both Thredbo and Perisher to get in some turns with TSRC, TMA and Winter Sports Club. Remember to renew your Alpine and Ski Cross memberships at Snow Australia as it is your support that creates many of the opportunities across the season.

Our events calendar is published, and I am very much looking forward to a full calendar of races across all levels and disciplines. I hope all our athletes have a great winter of training and can realize the rewards at their end of season competitions.

Keep the cold temperatures coming and I look forward to seeing you all at your clubs very shortly!

Cheers,
Shawn

Read Full Update

Included in this update:

• National Alpine & Ski Cross Team Announcement
• 2025 FUTURES Program Takes Shape
• Women of Winter: Tickets on Sale for Jindabyne Networking Evening
• 2025 Memberships
• Snowready