L a t e s t  n e w s ..... Rachel Adcock and Gerard Flahive win both races at Scottish Dry Slope Championships ...

'The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams' (Eleanor Roosevelt).

News from the top teams on the Men's tour:

Soelden shoot out! The Americans and Austrians have both been conducting time trials at Soelden in advance of the opening World Cup races next weekend.  With both Bode Miller and Daron Rahlves winning training runs on the American course, the seven man American team for the race has been settled.  Veteran Chip Knight is the man to lose out as Miller, Rahlves, Dane Spencer, Erik Schloppy and Jimmy Cochran (all pre qualified) have been joined by Ted Ligerty and Tom Rothrock. Snow conditions, according to Mike Morin, head coach of the American team, are “getting better by the day. Today, some sections were really good - dry, grippy, aggressive snow - but other sections were blowing apart with some big holes…”

Miller, the first U.S. World Cup overall champion since 1983 (Phil Mahre, Tamara McKinney) arrived Thursday “and was in good spirits, and he went straight up on the hill and made five or six runs, got right on his boards and skied his way right through the jet-lag,” Morin said. Morin said he was taking the U.S. men to Pitztal over the weekend for a couple of days of super G training, to give them a taste for speed and also to get them a change of scenery before they begin to make final preparations for the opening race on the 23rd. More slalom training is on the schedule for immediately after the opening giant slalom.  “The guys are healthy and motivated right now. That’s great because it would be such a bummer to be here, at this time [going into the season], with guys who are tired and already seemed burned out. I see that with some guys on other teams,” Morin said, “and I’m pleased our guys are fresh. “Yeah, we’ve got some work to do but they’ve all shown signs of being on track. I’ve seen a lot of progress from our guys, and that’s good. This will be a big season for everyone.”

The Austrian team have also had time trials for their quota:  Benni Raich and Hermann Maier won the two timed runs with Thomas Grandi invited to join in the second.  Grandi looked impressive as he finished 0.08 behind Maier with Raich further behind.  The others on the Austrian team to make the cut are Stefan Goergl, Rainer Schoenfelder and Christoph Gruber.  Patrick Bechter and Hannes Reichelt have joined the main group courtesy of their placings in the Europa Cup last year. Mario Matt, Mario Scheiber and Andi Schifferer won the final spots after the time trials.

USA team train down under.  7 Sept.  Ski Racing report: Eleven members of the gate-racing portion of the U.S. men’s alpine team are in New Zealand now, training mostly at Coronet Peak. The men’s speed team will train next month in South America. The team’s two stars, Daron Rahlves and Bode Miller, are participating in both camps. “Things are going quite well,” reports Mike Morin, the head coach of the tech squad. “They have received about 60 centimetres of new snow and had a lot of good snow making nights since we arrived. ”The coaches of the group spent evenings of the first week of the camp injecting the training hills with water, trying to create a simulated World Cup environment. “Coronet Peak has been very cooperative in allowing to inject and groom as we see it is needed,” said Morin.