13th FAI World Para Ski Championships, Gosau, Austria - 28th February 2011

28th February 2011

Arrival day, and what a scene greets competitors and judges as they arrive at this lovely Austrian resort - sunshine, blue skies, snow and low winds - and a great forecast for the rest of the week.

Already there have been canopies in the sky as competitors take advantage of the practice jumps and a chance to ski the local runs.

The Team Leaders' meeting is due to be held at the hotel at 20.00 hrs tonight and the first ski run at 8.30 am tomorrow morning.   

At the Team Leaders meeting the Meet Director announced that the qualifying run for the ski-ing event would start at 10.00 a.m. in the morning.  This would be over a slightly shorter course than that used during the competition.  The competitors could walk the course in the morning, but must not go through the gates.  The course would be closed at 9.45 ready for the first qualifying run at 10.00.  There would then be another Team Leaders meeting at 11.30 and the first accuracy lift would take off at 11.45.  Because of the snow conditions, (as the sun came up during the day it got softer),  the plan was to hold the first competative ski run on Wednesday a.m. as early as possible.

The Chief Judge then introduced his judging panel, and went through the rules for the event, which became official at 12.01 a.m. on 1st March 2011 (i.e. tomorrow).  There were a couple of questions from the floor - the packing area would be increased - the wind indicating streamer on the wind sock would be checked - and various housekeeping items, shuttle bus to the target area, where the information board would be etc.  The vest numbers were handed out to the Team Leaders for their competitors to wear on the ski-run in the morning, without the vest they would not be allowed onto the course to familarise themselves with it:  after that the meeting ended.   We have a total of 74 competitors.