Winter Games NZ was the first major event to include IPC alpine adaptive ski racing alongside its FIS alpine programme. Coronet Peak near Queenstown and Cardrona Alpine Resort, just over the Crown Range on the road to Wanaka, are the venues for Slalom, Giant Slalom and Super G disciplines for both categories.
All cross-country skiing events at Winter Games NZ take place along the Nordic ski trails at Snow Farm NZ, near Wanaka. It is one of the most difficult endurance sports using every major muscle group and requiring exceptionally high aerobic fitness.
Winter Games NZ played a big part in securing freeskiing as an Olympic sport. The halfpipe competition takes place in a half-cylinder-shaped course dug deep into the hill. Using speed gained on the slope, skiers come up over the rim of the pipe and perform acrobatic aerial tricks – the bigger and more difficult the better! In slopestyle, competitors perform tricks while descending the course moving around, over, across or down obstacles of varying technical difficulty including boxes, rails, jumps and jibs. All the action takes place at Cardrona Alpine Resort.
Halfpipe and slopestyle also make up the snowboard events at Winter Games NZ. The 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia marked the first time that snowboard slopestyle appeared on the Olympic programme giving the event the profile it deserves. Hardened champions and young hopefuls alike will wow the crowds at Cardrona Alpine Resort this winter.
The ancient Scots game of curling dates back to when games were played on frozen lochs and marshes. At Winter Games NZ the curling will take place at the Southern Hemisphere’s premiere indoor curling centre in Naseby. The game is played on ice as two teams take turns pushing a 19.1kg stone towards a series of concentric circles called the ‘house’. The object is to get the stone as close to the centre of the circles as possible.
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