New Zealand's elite snowboard and freeski athletes have made the most of lasting mountain conditions, recently completing their private annual spring training camp at Cardrona Alpine Resort.
Despite many summer codes having started, spring storms have provided enough snow for winter sport athletes' training purposes.
NZ snowboarding team coach Tom Wilmott said a total of 38 riders and skiers were involved with the programme, and several Olympians, World Cup competitors, and Winter X-Game medallists had used the camp to prepare for upcoming campaigns.
The New Zealand snowboard and freeski teams were joined by other top international athletes from the US, Japan, Australia and Spain in a training programme that made use of Cardrona's halfpipe and slopestyle facilities.
The athletes had exclusive use of the skifield from October 4 until October 17, to practise before the start of the northern winter competitions.
"We've used Cardrona's Olympic-specification halfpipe, [the skifield's] triple jump line, and a halfpipe and straight jump feature leading into a giant bagjump," Wilmott said.
The inflatable "bagjump" set-up gave athletes a chance to try new tricks and practise their landings before transferring the moves to the snow, he said.
"There has been plenty of progressive riding going down - many New Zealand team members have been landing new moves for the first time and increasing their bag of tricks going into the northern hemisphere winter."
