Season's first slopestyle and second big air World Cup events and a star-studded field led by reigning world champions attract thousands of spectators to the Stoneham and Quebec City venues.

Just as in the years before, Local Organisers of the Snowboard Jamboree are hosting once again an in-city big air World Cup event, right in the heart of downtown Quebec City.

Although the halfpipe event of the Snowboard Jamboree had to be cancelled last week, athletes and fans in Quebec can look forward to some nice riding in the resort of Stoneham from Feb 18th to 22nd.

For the next two years, Claudia Riegler (AUT) and Roland Fischnaller (ITA) will be the reigning world champions in the parallel giant slalom and parallel slalom, respectively. However, they also could remain the oldest snowboarders ever to win the world title even longer.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and FIS will launch the first ever Legacy Outreach Program in Falun (SWE) from 19th-21st February as the world’s top Nordic skiers gather for the 40th edition of the Championships.

As has become traditional since 2003, the FIS Council held its Gathering in conjunction with the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Vail Beaver Creek on Wednesday morning.

After a two-week break, the FS Cross-Country World Cup will get underway again. World’s best Cross-Country skiers will meet in Östersund, in the Jämtland province for the final test before the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun.

In a meeting of the FIS Council in conjunction with the Alpine World Ski Championships in Vail (USA) a new chairman of the FIS Ski Jumping Committee was appointed.

With the World Cup on hiatus before the World Championships in Falun, it was the juniors’s time to shine when their World Championships were held in Almaty, Kazakhstan. And much in the fashion of a Manuel Faißt or a Philipp Orter who claimed all the Junior World Championship gold medals in the past two years, there was another athlete who put his mark on the competitions: Norway’s rising star Jarl Riiber.

Good news both from the World Championship venue Falun and also from Ramsau, Austria where the Nordic Combined Continental Cup will resume next weekend: the snow controls for both events were positive.