WWUG Team Announcement

Snow Australia and UniSport Australia (UniSport) are pleased to announce that twelve athletes have been selected to represent Australia at the Lucerne 2021 Winter Universiade or FISU Winter World University Games (WWUG) in Switzerland in December. Two Alpine Skiers and 10 Cross Country Skiers will take part in 15 events over a 10 day period from December 10-20. The WWUG is traditionally held in January every two years, though has moved to December this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe last season.

Alpine Skiing (Giant Slalom, Slalom)

• Sammie Gaul (Australian National University)
• Harry Laidlaw (Victoria University)

Cross Country Skiing (Interval Start, Pursuit, Sprint, Mass Start, Relay, Mixed Team Sprint)

• Rosie Fordham (University of Alaska, Fairbanks)
• Ella Jackson (Latrobe University)
• Phoebe Cridland (Sydney University)
• Hannah Price (Australian National University)
• Bentley Walker-Broose (University of Canberra)
• Fedele de Campo (Australian National University)
• Hugo Hinckfuss (Australian National University)
• Adam Barnett (Swinburne University of Technology)
• Charles Hiam (Swinburne University of Technology)
• Tom Hoogenraad (Latrobe University)

Though Lucerne in central Switzerland is the hub for the WWUG, events for the various disciplines are spread across different venues. The Alpine events in which the Australian athletes are competing will take place in St Moritz. The Cross Country events will be held in Realp near Andermatt, where a number of the Australian athletes competed at the Swiss Championships in 2020.

Alpine skiers Laidlaw and Gaul will travel to the WWUG from Austria and Italy respectively, where they train with European based teams. Laidlaw is a member of the Snow Australia National Alpine Team (NAST) and trains with the Global Racing team out of Innsbruck internationally, where Mount Hotham Racing Squad program director Hugh Brooks also coaches. Gaul trains with the Kronplats Racing Centre in the Sud-Tirol and may have members of her team from other nations racing at the WWUG as well.

The Cross Country athletes will be supported in Andermatt by coach Alexei Sotskov, assistant coach/manager Victoria Vinidiktova and wax technician Jonas Loeffler. The same support team will be in place for a lead-in Continental Cup races in Goms, just over the Furka pass from Realp. This will be first time since 2007 that Australia will be able to enter both men’s and women’s Relay teams at the WWUG. 

Visit the Official WWUG page here