FIS Nordic & Alpine Junior World Championships Off To A Great Start
The FIS Nordic Junior and U23’s, as well as the FIS Alpine Junior World Ski Championships are off to a great start in the Swiss resorts of Kandersteg, Goms (Nordics) and Davos (Alpine). Abundant sunshine has highlighted the first days of competition.
The Championships were officially declared open by FIS Council Member Eduardo Roldan, who, in his opening remarks, said: “I wish all athletes very successful Junior World Ski Championships, good weather, sports performances at the highest level and great excitement and fun at these very important events.”
Nordics
In Goms, the Cross-Country Skiing competitions got underway on 28th January with free technique sprints. In the junior category Moa Lundgren (SWE) and Tom Mancini (FRA) claimed gold while Norwegians Udnes Weng and Erik Valnes dominated the U23 competitions. On 31st January, the 5km and 10km classic races were won by Polina Nekrasova (RUS) and Jon Rolf Skamo Hope (NOR) in the junior category, Yana Kirpichenko (RUS) and Mattis Stenshagen (NOR) in the U23 category in the distances of 10km and 15 km.
In Kandersteg, the Nordic Combined ladies test event took place on 30th January which marks another key step in the development of ladies’ Nordic Combined. The event was won by Jenny Nowak (GER).
Continental Cup Coordinator Toni Guggemoos was beyond satisfied: "This was an amazing historic day for us here at the Junior World Championships in Kandersteg and for the whole discipline of Nordic Combined. The ladies' competition was exciting until the last minutes and we were impressed by the level of performance and the fighting spirit that was shown."
In the men’s field, Ondrej Pazout (CZE) was crowned Junior World Champion in the 10km Nordic Combined competition.
Ski Jumping, meanwhile, will see its first medal event on 1st February in Kandersteg.
Click here for the full competition programme.
Alpine
Three competitions have already been completed at the Alpine events in Davos. Julia Scheib (AUT) took the giant slalom gold in the opening competition on 30th January, while Meta Hrovat (SLO) won the slalom and Marco Odermatt (SUI) took gold in downhill which was staged as a two-run format on 31st January.
The young skiers born between 1997-2001 are competing in ten individual medal competitions, in addition to the much-anticipated team event on Saturday.
Click here for the full competition programme.
Livestream
All competitions are streamed live through the Swiss-Ski website.
Nordics: https://www.swiss-ski.ch/jwsc2018
Alpine: https://www.swiss-ski.ch/davos2018
For regular updates, follow the hashtag #jwsc2018 on Social Media and stay tuned to the event websites https://www.jwsc2018.ch and https://davos2018.ch, as well as the FIS website.
