Winter has come early

There has been quite a change in scenery in less than 24 hours here in Austria! Only a couple of days ago it was sunny and 25 degrees here in the valley, with grass greener than anything I've seen in Australia. It has now dropped to sub zero temperatures, (-15 degrees up on the mountain) and a blanket of snow covers the ground here in town. Up at Stubai Glacier, they have received almost half a meter of fresh snow in two days.

Looks like the flower boxes might struggle to survive this week.... :(

(View from my window in Neustift this morning)

More ISFT photos...

Charlie Payne has kindly sent me a few more ISFT photos from our 'ambassadors' shoot last year...

Michael Rishworth, myself and Dan Portelli

Back in Austria

Yesterday we arrived in Austria where we will be spending the next three weeks training.
We're currently at Stubai Glacier, and next week we'll be at Hintertux.

Like this time last year, the sun is shining and the temperatures are warm. Today was a comfortable 25 degrees in the valley, and a minimum of 5 degrees up on the hill. Better weather than Australia at the moment!

(Hanging out with the friendly cows next door...)

Will keep you posted with how it's going!

Super Hero Shots

I recently did a photoshoot with sports massage therapist and photographer Arnaud Domange from the Victorian Institute of Sport. With his incredible photographic skills and creativity, he is putting together a Super Hero / Villain themed comic-book, featuring numerous elite athletes from the VIS.

Here are a couple of the shots....

Highlights video blog from Aus / NZ winter season...

The Australian winter season has prematurely come to an end, with the warmest winter ever on record. Last week we had our final week of training in Perisher. Despite a lack of snow in the last few months, we still managed to get some great training done in preparation for the coming World Cup season. It doesn't take much for the Aussies to get some quality training done with limited snow. All it takes is a start gate, a few big jumps in a terrain park, and a bit of creativity...

Below is a short highlights video blog from the Aussie / NZ winter season.

Enjoy!


Highlights from the Australian Ski Season- 2011 from Katya Crema on Vimeo.

Spring Training

This week kicked off with the Australian University Games in Thredbo, NSW. I competed in the slalom, GS, super G and ski cross events, taking home three golds and one second. I also won the Overall Woman's Alpine title. The super G was a lot of fun. We raced a full length course down Super Trail at Thredbo, starting at 7am. It meant a ridiculous 4:45am wake-up in Jindabyne.. but definitely worth it for the mountain sunrise!

(Pulling out the old slalom skis from the shed for Uni Games slalom)

Later in the week we had a ski cross camp; our last training camp in Australia for the season. We were lucky to have beautiful sunny weather and blue skies. It must have been about 15 degrees up on the hill.... hot enough to be training without tops in the start gate.

(All smiles....)

(Now it's getting serious...)

(Good to see the boys finally doing some work)

I'm now heading back to Melbourne for a few weeks where I will juggle uni with training. The team then heads to the glaciers in Austria in October for a three week training camp, which I'm very excited about. It means the World Cup season is not too far away!

Highlights from Ski Cross National Champs and NZ Winter Games