BallOfSpray

The Aussie Junior Masters were held at Stoney Park last weekend with 70 junior skiers coming from all over the country for this tournament. Due to such a large number of skiers both lakes were running from 8 till 6 both days.

Many of these skiers had been training hard at the Aussie junior ski school the week prior, getting coached by some of Australia’s best such as Ryan Green, Nick Adams, Jacinta Carroll and Chelsea Scott.

Conditions were near perfect on Saturday and sub junior Mack Davis took advantage of this getting 5@14.25m (28 off). He wasn’t the only one to make good of the conditions Katie Miller got 1@13m (32 off) in the under 14 girls and Jeff Fitzsimons got 2@12m (35 off) in the under 14 boys beating his personal best and the state record. He wasn’t the only one breaking records, Tayla Simmonds broke the under 10 girls national slalom record with a 5@49kph(30mph). Almost straight out of a neck brace Josh Briant’s 4@12m in the under 17 boys wasn’t enough to beat Craig Jeude. German skier Chiara Bonnemann proved too good in under 17 girls slalom with a best score of 2@12m. No surprises in the under 21s with Jacinta Carroll running 12m once and Tim Bradstreet running 12m both rounds to take out their divisions.

In the trick department two skiers to look out for in the future are Mack Davis and Tayla Simmonds with both tricking over 3000 they surely will be a force to reckon with in the future. Katie Miller coming back from injury tricked 4450 and Archie Davis 5920.

A solid headwind graced skiers on the Saturday and this proved for some exciting jumping. Jeff Fitzsimons lost his right ski before the ramp on his first jump which sent him over the ramp on his back, his next jump wasn’t much better getting blown back on his counter cut. His last jump though he came out and jumped a personal best, then beat it again in the second round. The headwind was ripping through the juniors with some of them coming unstuck on their counter cuts. It didn’t bother Josh Wallent in the under 17 boys jumping 42.7m (140ft) or Tim Bradstreet jumping 64m (210ft). Jacinta Carroll’s consistent skiing in all three events paid off, breaking the Australian under 21 womens overall record (0.5@11.25m, 6300, 52.7m) and she even singled a 32.6m jump in the 2^nd round due to the torrential rain.

Katie Miller and Archie Davis were awarded the Sue Fieldhouse and Brett Irons Memorial Trophy for the most outstanding junior skier. These two under 14s performed strongly in all three events on the weekend.

What’s next for these Aussie juniors?

Half have been selected to compete in the Aussie/Kiwi this weekend in New Zealand. While the other half is heading down to Bridgewater for the Australian Masters or training for the next big comp, Junior Moomba.

Stay tuned...

Full results can be found in the tournament skiing section of the AWWF website.