Fullmer aerial ski favourite

Press, 31 August 1985, Page 80

Fullmer aerial ski favourite

Freestyle skiers from Canada, France, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand are beginning to arrive in Methven for the third ANZ Bank international freestyle ski-ing championships which will be held at Mount Hutt next week. Now that freestyle ski-ing has reverted to amateur status in preparation for inclusion in the Winter Olympics, interest in the sport has increased substantially. Competition will begin on September 4, with the ballet discipline, but the official opening by the Mayor of Christchurch. Sir Hamish Hay, will be held the next day. It will be his first visit to Mount Hutt. All three disciplines — ballet, aerials and moguls — will be contested. The withdrawal of the world champion, Alain La Roche, of Canada, owing to national team commitments, has opened up all three disciplines. La Roche is the world champion in both the aerial discipline and the combined. , Scott Fullmer, anotner Canadian, is now the favour-

ite for the aerial competition. He will find challenges coming from last year’s second and third placegetters, Joe Satherley, of New Zealand, and Mike Haid, of Canada,. respectively. The schedule for the competition is: Wednesday, September 4, ballet; September 5, aerials training; September 6, aerials; September 7, mogul preliminaries; September 8, mogul finals; September 9 and 10, contingency days. . Meanwhile, one hundred miles per hour (161km/h) is the ambitious target being set by racers in the New Zealand speed ski-ing championship being held in Tekapo tomorrow. The present record for the event is the 91 m.p.h. (146km/h) recorded by a German ski and tennis instructor, Otti Hauke, through a “speed trap” at the Craigieburn Valley club ski-field last year. However, the fastest speed recorded in New Zealand is the 94 m.p.h. (151 km/h) set by Canterbury’s Stuart Blakely at Mount Hutt in November, 1975, during national team down-

hill training for the Innsbruck Winter Olympics.

At Porter Heights, even in the absence of the national team members, in the middle of a training camp at Turoa, there is expected to be good racing in the Air Pacific ski series this week-end.

The event has attracted a field of 68, and both the slalom today and the giant slalom tomorrow are national points races.

Among the competitors will be a number of skiers who are taking part in scholarship weeks sponsored by the Canterbury Ski Association during the school holidays. The first scholarship week has been at Fox Peak this week and the second will be at Craigieburn next week. There are 10 children in each scholarship week under the charge of Mike Gibson.