Alpine & Ski Cross - 2024/25 Season Wrap

The northern hemisphere season  for our alpine and ski cross athletes was again a busy one which only wrapped last week with the Ski Cross Junior World Championships in France.

As usual, it was full of ups and downs with some season-ending injuries marring the campaigns of some of our stars, while others took giant strides forward on the road to Milano-Cortina 2026.

ALPINE
Madi Hoffman’s season was undermined just as it was getting started. Launching into the 2024/25 season on the back of last year’s campaign where she earned her first World Cup points, Madi hit every place on the podium at the Nor-Am Cup in Panorama, Canada before striking a cruel blow, tearing the ACL in one knee and MCL in the other to place her on the sidelines for the rest of the season.

Greta Small began her season in South America before returning to World Cup racing in the USA, Italy and Germany.

While training pointed towards a potential top 30 finish at the World Championships in Austria, a knee injury during her downhill finals run brought a premature end to her season and a return to Australia to rehab as she strives for a fourth-straight Winter Olympic Games.

Joining Greta and Madi in rehab in Canberra currently is Sammie Gaul whose season was also cut short by an ACL injury right before she was due to represent Australia at the World University Games in Italy.

As always, Louis Muhlen-Schulte has had a busy season, competing in nearly 40 events which included 19 World Cup starts across both tech disciplines. Highlights of the season included victories at the National Championships in both Italy and Greece.

Hugh McAdam also picked up a podium in giant slalom at the Greek National Championships as well as picking up a FIS race victory at the same event. His 23.00 FIS points for that win equalled his career-best which he achieved earlier this season with a race win in Slovenia. Hugh achieved 12 top 10 results this season including a ninth place finish at the World University Games.

Louis and Hugh were joined at the World Championships by four debutants: Connor Leggett, Sophie Mahon and siblings Henry and Phoebe Heaydon.

Phoebe also represented Australia at the World Junior Championships alongside Pia Bruce, Abbey Evans and debutants Chiara Schoerghofer, Harry Hoffman and Felix Sachs.

In a good sign of progression, Abbey, Connor, Henry, Sophie, Harry and Felix all achieved career-best FIS Points results alongside National team members Thomas Hoffman - who took a slalom win at the FIS University races in Alaska scoring a 23.00 FIS point result - and Cate Dance - who took the podium in California with a pair of FIS giant slalom second place finishes.

Phoebe Heaydon’s back end of the season continued to go from strength to strength, recording her best FIS points finishes with a pair of wins in Italy before a victory at the Italian National Championships earned her a new low of 20.00 FIS points. Incredibly, Phoebe’s six-best career FIS Points results have all come in the past six weeks.

SKI CROSS
On the back of his victory in the Australia New Zealand Cup, Liam Michael added to his six World Cup starts last season with another 12 races at the top level in 2024/25. His season-best World Cup result came in Canada with a 33rd place finish, the same result he achieved on World Championships debut in Switzerland last month.

Prior to World Champs, Liam scored a pair of FIS victories in Canada, while a January fourth place finish at the European Cup race in Reiteralm earned a career high 180.00 FIS Points.

Kyra Wheatley was due to join Liam at the World Championships before a knee injury derailed her campaign. Kyra was looking strong having made her World Cup debut in February where she scored 13th and 14th place finishes in Italy after qualifying into the quarter-finals.

Duncan Cowan produced some of the standout performances of any emerging Australian Winter Sports athletes this year. He won five of the six Nor-Am Cup races he contested to wrap up the overall title even before the final events which he missed to compete at the Junior World Championships. Duncan scored a ninth place finish at Isola 2000 in the individual event and combined with fellow Youth Winter Olympian Dakota Turner for 10th in the team event.

Dakota was 13th in her individual event at Junior World Championships and this year moved up to European Cup racing where she scored a pair of top 20 results.

Emerson Facer also raced well on the European Cup circuit this season with a career-best 12th place finish in France before a season-best FIS points result of 75.00 with fourth at a FIS race in Austria.