Summer Roundup: Kostelic, Mickel, WADA and FIS

Summer Roundup: Kostelic, Mickel, WADA and FIS{mosimage}On Tuesday morning Janica Kostelic had yet another arthroscopic knee operation, during which Dr. Christian Schenk (of Schruns, Austria) found cartilage damage and debris. Kostelic finished second in the women’s overall World Cup standings last year despite having sat out the 2003-2004 season with a knee injury and thyroid disease. An item about the surgery is at her website.

A new museum has opened in Utah. The George Eccles Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games Museum, at Utah Olympic Park, commemorates the 2002 Winter Olympics there. Click here to view the Salt Lake Tribune piece, which mentions Shannon Bahrke’s lucky belt and Bode Miller’s ‘spiderman tights.’

Finlay Mickel of Great Britain, a downhiller who trains and competes frequently with the U.S. Ski Team, was honored by his home city of Edinburgh this week when he was named Senior Sports Person of the Year for 2004-05. Mickle finished in the top 20 consistently on the World Cup last season and was 11th in the world championship downhill in Bormio.

On Friday night, Bode Miller and Erik Schlopy of the U.S. Ski Team will take part in the ArenaBattle Celebrity Skills Challenge. They will compete with, among others, Randall Cunningham and Sterling Sharpe. A full report will follow at skiracing.com.

The World Anti-Doping Agency has announced that ‘in very rare cases, and under certain special conditions’ a chemical reaction may occur in a urine sample that may lead to an adverse finding for nandrolone, an anabolic steroid. WADA is instructing its labs to adjust procedeures accordingly, and the memo to those labs is viewable online (click here). In December of 2004, Hans Knauss of Austria tested positive for nandrolone, and was banned from competition for 18 months.

The FIS has reported that the number of athletes registered for FIS points rose to 26,712 in 2005 (a slight rise from 25,858 in 2004). Of those, 13,919 were alpine skiers. Cross country had 3,674, snowboarding had 3,571, and masters racing had 3,530. ‘Indeed the number of within alpine skiing has been on a steady rise since 1963 when 200 Ladies and 450 were registered by their National Ski Associations with FIS’ said the FIS report. ‘Today 5’049 Ladies and 8’870 Men are registered to compete in FIS alpine competitions and be classified on the FIS Points List.’ There are athletes registered for ski jumping and, nordic combined too, the report continues, “however, there are no FIS points in these disciplines. Together the number of registered athletes in these disciplines makes up 1,091.”

A new post-graduate training school for snowboarders has opened in Mammoth, California. The website of the program is www.mlasa.org.

Levelwear has been named the official licensed merchandiser of Alpine Canada Alpine. The company’s casual clothing line will feature a custom-branded ‘Crazy Canucks’ clothing line.

In 2004-2005, New Hampshire’s ski areas had their second-best winter on record, in terms of visitor numbers. According to Ski NH, a trade association, the state posted 2,270,106 alpine skier and snowboarder visits. This number falls just short of the all-time record of 2,357,000 recorded during the 2000/2001 ski season. Meanwhile Colorado had it’s third best season ever. According to Colorado Ski Country USA, the state recorded an estimated 11.81 million total skier visits, or an increase of more than 550,000 visits.

Blackcomb’s Horstman glacier, site of many summer training camps, opens on Saturday, June 11.