2005 FIS World Champion Nina Li successfully defended her title Saturday at the 2007 FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships at Madonna di Campiglio. Ranked 4th after the first jump, she reclaimed the gold with a solid second jump as leading athletes made mistakes.
[First Tracks!! Online Ski Magazine]
Kudos to China for bagging the gold. It’s a strong indication of what the rest of the world can expect from them in Vancouver 2010 for the Winter Olympics.
Assoli ‘Oly’ Slivets of Belarus won the silver and Jacqui Cooper of Australia, World Cup ski season’s star, was left with bronze.
Hmmm. I’ve never seen snow. …read more

Dale Begg-Smith.
Canadian-born freestyle skier Begg-Smith wins in the first moguls event of the World Cup held in Canada. It’s his seventh world cup win and ninth podium placing for eleven events of his career.
And I quote,
The Olympic Winter Games gold medal winner scored 25.74 points for a narrow victory over French skier Guilbaut Colas on 25.59 points and Alexandre Bilodeau from Canada on 25.55 points. – The Australian
Wikipedia states, Begg-Smith won the gold medal for his adopted country Australia in the men’s moguls event at the 2006 Winter Olympics held in Turin, Italy. He is only the third Australian to …read more

I remember watching him on telly when he was awarded the gold in the last Winter Olympics at Torino. Then I hear in the news a bit of info about him. Born in Canada but now resides in Melbourne, Australia. He’s only 21 but is already rich beyond his years. He owns an internet pop-up advertising company. He is only the third Australian to win a gold medal in a Winter Games.
According to my sources, he still ranks second to Jeremy Bloom in the over-all World Cup Moguls standings. But hey, you have to give him credit for the gold …read more

Well, I said that I thought it was and interesting “sport” to watch (see previous post), and promised to do a little research to figure out what the heck’s going on. Thankfully, I didn’t have to go far .. as my favorite Olympic site .. CBC, has animated instructions explaining how the sport works .. just click on ‘Related Information’, then select ‘Sport Explainer’.
SHORT Version
* In the Men’s freestyle “Aerial” skiing qualifications earlier today, 28 skiiers took two jumps and the best 12 skiiers with the highest score will compete in the final on Wednesday.
* Out of …read more

Alexandre Bilodeau could have made it to the highest step of the podium in Men’s mogul competition, yet finished 11th.
“It’s disapointing because I know I could have won a medal, maybe even the Gold”, said he, drying up his tears.
After making it to 11th place in qualifications, Bilodeau tried to amend these mistakes by attempting a triple off-axis twister (translation?) but failing to do so by posing his right hand on the ground upon landing.
“I made a huge mistake, as I did in the qualifications. Unfortunatly, these kind of mistakes are not forgiving.”, explained Bilodeau.

“I was inside my comfort zone. …read more