By LT Cameron Jamieson
The Navy Alpine Snowsport ski and snowboard teams have proved themselves to be worthy competitors at the 2006 ADF Championships held recently at Mt Buller in Victoria.
The ADF championships followed on from the Navy championships the previous week, which also provided a good source of training and coaching for the naval snow athletes.
Army made a clean sweep of the championships, winning all the major trophies, with Air Force coming second in the men’s ski and snowboard events.
Navy men’s ski team captain LEUT Daniel Crocker said they were only narrowly defeated by Air Force in the Alpine skiing.
“We had great team cohesion,” he said, “and despite the conditions we did very well.”
LEUT Crocker won the Giant Slalom and was the second fastest overall ADF male skier, while LEUT Eugene Cleary did well to come fourth in both the slalom and the Extended Giant Slalom, finishing fourth overall.
The Navy snowboarding team also made its presence felt, having more team members than the ski team.
Team captain AB Stewart Smith said the team did well despite the poor conditions.
“Five out of the eight team members were new to the competition, and hadn’t raced at all before,” he said.
“The week of the Navy championships was their first opportunity to go through race gates, and they improved quite well with the training they received, enough to make the Navy team.
AB Smith said the Navy team was keen to get more people to attend the championships. “It’s a good team-building opportunity and you get to meet people from the other services,” he said. “You mix with people and ranks you wouldn’t normally meet.”
Chairman of the ADF competition sub-committee LTCOL Scott Harris said a key outcome of the championships was to prepare and train Alpine snowsport athletes for the overseas championships.
“The Australian team will compete with European combined-services teams, which includes Britain, Italy, Germany, France and the Swiss,” he said.
“Over the years we have done well, with some of our athletes finishing in the top 20.”
