Ski competitions 2011 review

The SkiHorizon Ski Holiday Guide editorial team are not just experts in helping people choose destinations for skiing and snowboarding holidays, they are huge fans of winter sports. Here are their highlights from an entertaining and sometimes unpredictable winter ski season.

The Alpine Skiing World Cup ended in late March, thus ending six months of competition which brought plenty of surprises. Unsurprisingly, the Croatian Ivica Kostelic won the overall competition thanks to his many victories, including the Slalom and Combined categories. In the Ladies competition, German Maria Riesch won the cup, only 3 points ahead of Lindsay Vonn (USA) who still managed to have a remarkable season, after winning gold medals in Combined, Super G and Downhill.

Not to be confused with the World Cup, the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships were held in Germany in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Austria once again makes an impact by finishing first in the medal table. But France was not far behind and stepped onto the second step of the podium. This year, a new event was organised: the team event. The French team managed to finish in first place.

Another event highlight of the season was the Winter X-Games where ski and snowboard freestyle were on the menu! The first leg of the competition takes place in Aspen in the U.S.A and the best freestylers in the world come to compete in a great atmosphere. The Americans dominated the Winter X-Games by winning no less than 42 medals, including 12 gold.

In late March, it is in Tignes that the Winter X-Games Europe are organised. The weather disturbed the competition a little, but luckily nothing was cancelled. The French freestyler, Kevin Rolland, achieved his goal on the very first day of the competition by winning his fourth gold medal of the Winter X-Games in just two years, as did American Kaya Turski. England also came back with a silver medal thanks to snowboarder Jenny Jones in Slopestyle (Aspen).

This is just a glimpse of what happened this year, but you can find more details in the latest article in the Ski Holiday Guide, available at: skihorizon.co.uk