Snowsports

New Zealand's top skeleton racers Katharine Eustace and Ben Sandford have qualified to compete at the world championships this month despite finishing outside the top 10 in their World Cup races at Whistler, Canada, on Monday.

Wanaka adaptive snowboarder Carl Murphy won a silver medal at the Para-Snowboard World Championships in Orcieres, France on Sunday, in the latest in a string of recent top-three finishes overseas.

Wanaka freestyle skier Jossi Wells has picked up an X Games medal in Aspen this morning.

New Zealand athletes produced strong performances at the close of competition at the Winter Youth Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, yesterday.

Wanaka big mountain freeskier Sam Smoothy (25) won the second leg of the Freeride World Tour in Chamonix, France, yesterday while team-mate Janina Kuzma (26), of Wanaka, was third in her event at the same competition.

Sarah Burke was an X Games star with a grass-roots mentality - a daredevil superpipe skier who understood the risks inherent to her sport and the debt she owed to it.

Matheson Hill's career is going downhill - as fast as he possibly can.

High performance fitness trainer Martin Toomey has been appointed to head Snow Sports New Zealand and will take up the office in Wanaka in February.

After a southern winter of technique experimentation and Winter Games success, Paralympic skiing gold medallist Adam Hall is heading north again.

Wanaka freeskier Jossi Wells performs during the Freeze Festival at London's Battersea Power Station at the weekend.