In a complete contrast to yesterday’s conditions the wind, snow and sleet made for interesting racing in the freestyle discipline, bringing the cross country competition for the 100% Pure New Zealand Winter Games to a close today.

 The Canadian athletes made a clean sweep of the medals table in the freestyle racing, securing top three positions in both the men’s and women’s field.

The freestyle course covered 10km (2 laps) for the men – able-bodied and adaptive standing skiers and 5km for both women’s fields and the sit-ski men.

In the men’s field Ivan Babikov came in first with team mate Devon Kershaw crossing the line just five seconds behind. George Grey took out third. Canada’s Alex Harvey won the Under 23 overall title.

In the women’s field Sara Renner, the classic cross country winner from Sunday scooped her second gold today. Yesterday’s sprint winner Perianne Jones gained second and Brittany Webster third. Webster also won the Under 23 overall winner.

New Zealand men’s cross country Olympic hopeful, Ben Koons, collected 102.31 FIS points from his eighteenth placing today and moves another step closer to qualifying. Highest placed New Zealand female, Andrea Fancy, crossed the line in seventh and Sarah Murphy (NZL) came tenth.

Photo: Perianne Jones of Canada battling wind, snow and sleet. Soure: Getty Images

Snowboard superstars hit Cardona’s Olympic halfpipe today in extremely variable weather. At stake was a place in tomorrow’s LG Snowboard FIS World Cup Halfpipe final, the first event of the season.

In the women’s heat, the triple challenge of whiteout, snow and wind tested riders’ concentration and technique to the limit. World number one, Liu Jiayu from China led the way with a magnificent display in her first run which included 5-to-5 and 7-to-7 combos.

Five other women go straight into tomorrow’s final. They are 2006 Olympic silver medallist Gretchen Bleiler (USA) who finished second, world number three Soko Yamaoka of Japan, reigning Japanese national champion Rana Okada, Kelly Clark (USA) – winner of the 2009 Burton NZ Open Halfpipe at Cardrona – and Spanish number one Queralt Castellet.

Twelve more riders face a tough semi-final in the morning to grab the final six places including Wanaka-based athletes Juliane Bray and Kendall Brown.

Conditions stayed poor as the male riders completed their first run. Pre-event favourite Shaun White lived up to his billing with a smooth run through the snow including a switch frontside 10 and super-big amplitude. No one could touch White’s class even as blue skies returned and the flame-haired American’s chose not to appear for his second run.

Joining him in the final are Kazuhiro Kokubo and Ryoh Aono from Japan, and Mason Aguirre (USA) who took out the second heat ahead of Janne Korpi of Finland and Norwegian Tore Holvik.

Twelve other men will contest the morning semi for the remaining six final places.

Strong play and intense games characterised yesterday’s curling round robins, with all ice sheets in action first up with the eight men’s teams opening the second day’s play.

Australia battled hard against Korea in what was an intense game, Korea eventually winning 8-5. China took the lead over Czech Republic, finishing well ahead in the sixth end, 10-1. New Zealand and USA played a close game all the way to the eighth, USA winning, 9-5. Japan was too strong for Canada, winning 12-6.

In the women’s third round Korea played another strong game, holding its own for most of the game against world champion China, but China eventually shut out Korea securing a 9-8 win. Australia played well, but in the end Japan was too strong, winning 8-3.

In the men’s third round Korea put in another strong performance, beating New Zealand 9-4.

Still on the men’s round, China and Japan played an even game right up until the last end, when it looked like it could go either way. China had the last shot of the game, but it came into the house a little short in that end and the game went to Japan, 8-7. USA was on form beating Canada 6-2. Australia beat Czech Republic, 10-2.

In the final women’s round of the day Japan beat Korea, 7-1 and New Zealand was soundly beaten by world champion China with a final score of 11-1.

Photo: Curlers compete in round robin competition at Naseby.  Source: Getty Images

The 100% Pure New Zealand Winter Games alpine Super G at Coronet Peak was postponed today, after bad weather affected the course and also created timing issues, forcing the abandonment of the race until tomorrow (August 26).

The Australia New Zealand Cup race is one of the glamour events of the Winter Games and has attracted a number of top men and women international ski racers.

In a world first for elite snowsports, adaptive skiers from all over the world are also competing on the same Super G course as the able bodied athletes.

Chief of Race Nigel Brown of Queenstown said rain and strong winds overnight on Monday caused major problems to the course, which runs the length of Coronet Peak, blowing out a major section of safety netting.  The bad weather also adversely affected the timing system.

Technical Delegate Amanda Shaw of Canada praised the work of the mountain race crew and the many volunteers who put in their time to help get the course up and running in such challenging conditions. “The track was in amazing shape and they did everything possible to make the race happen.”

Winter Games CEO Arthur Klap was philosophical about the postponement.

“Postponements, cancellations and alterations to programmes are all part of snowsports and we live to fight another day.”

“It was disappointing for everyone, and particularly the athletes that we did have a window to race this afternoon, but the timing was affected and prevented the race going ahead. However we are very happy that after four days of competition the Super G has been our only postponement.”

The 100% New Zealand Winter Games Super G is scheduled to start at Coronet Peak tomorrow at 9.00am. The women will run first, followed by the men, then the adaptive skiers.