2025 Australia New Zealand Cup Gets Underway At Hotham

The 2025 Australia New Zealand Cup got underway this week, with ski and snowboard cross action at Australia’s Mt. Hotham kicking off a two week sprint of competitions that will also see slopestyle, moguls, dual moguls, cross county and alpine skiing events hitting five different resorts across the two southern hemisphere nations.

The Australia New Zealand Cup is an important competition which not only provides top level racing during the domestic sesaon but also provides an opportunity for athletes to potentially advance to racing on the world stage.

This week Mount Hotham has provided the perfect venue for Ski Cross and Snowboard Cross racing from Wednesday to Saturday on the back of a highly succesful Snow Australia FUTURES camp and the opening round of the FIS JNR SBX Series powered by the Chumpy Pullin Foundation.

After helping lead the FUTURES earlier in the week, Liam Michael has come out on the opening two days of racing for back-to-back SX wins in the ANC, just reward for a strong domestic training block ahead of the northern winter.

"It's a really good test for my off-season," said Michael. "It's really helpful for FIS points and ANC points to get these wins and get me closer to that World Cup spot that I need for the upcoming northern hemisphere season."

On the opening day of SBX competition, Cam Bolton edged out Adam Lambert and Declan Dent in a photo finish to claim the first men's race, the charge to the line proving how important the ANC is even to athletes who have stood on World Cup podiums.

In the first of three races for the women, reigning FIS Snowboard Cross Rookie of the Year Mia Clift claimed victory in the Big Final ahead of 2024 Europa Cup champion Noemie Widemer (SUI) and Maya Billingham, who took out the FIS JNR SBX Series race on Wednesday.

The next week we return to Perisher from 26-28 August for back-to-back days of freestyle moguls action, while over at New Zealand’s Coronet Peak we’ll see 2x alpine slalom and 2x giant slalom races going down from 27-31 August.

The last day of August will also be the last day of the 2025 ANC season, with dual moguls bringing a couple of action packed competition weeks coming to a close back in Australia at Mt. Buller.