Young snowboarders spray snow into the air as they perform stunts during an extreme sports style competition at Ski Dubai.

The excitement is played out to the background of hip hop and rock music being pumped out through large speakers by a DJ working on a specially constructed turntable.
The event is part of the Mall of the Emirates attraction’s freestyle nights that are running during October and November and are open to anyone wanting to compete for points and prizes.

The competition is being sponsored by ski wear firm Oakley and takes place on October 19 and November 16 and 30.

Competitions will include “Big Air” which allows competitors to take off and perform airborne tricks after launching off a ramp and “Slope Style” where they show off their moves whilst skiing or snowboarding down the slope runs.

Tom Aitchison, 13, originally from the UK has been in Dubai for two-and-a-half years, said: “This is fantastic. I have been doing this for nine months and made a lot of friends.”

He said he first got involved after watching previous events with other friends.

He said: “It’s always a really good atmosphere when they run the events and I wish they did them more regularly.”
Om Jang, 30, from Nepal, has been in Dubai for a year and has been snowboarding at the mall for six months.
He said: “I really love doing it because it’s an unusual activity to do in a country like this.

“I particularly like doing the slide jumps and trying out new tricks and stunts.

“It takes a lot of practice but once you get the hang of it you can do all kinds of crazy stuff.”

The competitions are split into under 16 and over 17 categories and there is no extra fee to take part apart from the normal Ski Dubai entry charges.

Jackie Longworth, a spokeswoman for Oakley, said: “The Oakley Freestyle Nights are all about giving people interested in ski sports the chance to enjoy their passion in a safe and friendly environment.

“This year we are also introducing a points system and a final on November 30 where we will have some great prizes on offer.

“These events are open to everyone not just the hardcore snowboarders and it’s as much about introducing these activities to a wider audience as anything else.”

In general around 20 skiers take part in the sessions with registration taking place at 7pm and the contest lasting around 45 minutes.
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College football
Florida State coach discusses sanctions: Florida State coach Bobby Bowden says NCAA sanctions calling for giving up victories in 10 different sports are too harsh.

Bowden, 79, also said he supports the decision of T.K. Wetherell, university president, to challenge the NCAA’s bid to have the school vacate victories, reportedly including as many as 14 in football.

Bowden’s 382 career victories are one fewer than all-time major-college leader Joe Paterno of Penn State has achieved. Bowden made his first comments Wednesday night about the NCAA penalties for an academic-cheating scandal at Florida State, involving 61 scholarship athletes.

“It just seems like they’re killing a flea with a hammer,” Bowden said.

Meanwhile, Wetherell apologized for a profane remark made Tuesday about Bowden’s former school, Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. Wetherell used a term that means stupid or incompetent.

Skiing
Vonn sliced her thumb on broken champagne bottle: Lindsey Vonn’s stitched-up and swollen right thumb, sliced open on a broken champagne bottle during a photo op gone awry last month, is protected by a brace that wraps around her wrist.

Late in the recently concluded World Cup season, that freak injury forced the Vail, Colo., skier to tape her pole to her glove for races but she managed to secure her second consecutive World Cup overall title.

Vonn said she worries she might need a second operation on the thumb, which she can’t bend fully and might never be able to straighten.

“There’s always a possibility that there could be too much scar tissue, and I don’t get the range of motion back, and that would mean that I would have to have surgery again,” Vonn said. “But I’m hoping that that’s not the case. I’m hoping that it’s healing well, which the doctors say it is.”

NHL
Canucks win 11th home game in a row: Roberto Luongo made 30 saves for his first shutout since Nov. 8, and the Vancouver Canucks extended their franchise-record home winning streak to 11 games with a 3-0 victory over St. Louis.

Alex Burrows, Mason Raymond and Henrik Sedin scored for the Canucks, who are 16-3-1 in their last 20 games.

Ovechkin scores No. 50: Alex Ovechkin scored his league-leading 50th goal of the season to become the Washington Capitals’ first three-time 50-goal scorer. He scored at 7:43 of the first period in a 5-2 victory over Tampa Bay.

Ovechkin has 213 goals in 315 regular-season games. He scored 65 goals last season and 52 as a rookie in 2005-06.

Brodeur must pay ex-wife $500,000 a year until 2020: Days after setting a league record for career victories by a goaltender, Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils has been dealt an alimony setback by a New Jersey appeals court.

The court ruled Brodeur must pay his ex-wife, Melanie DuBois, $500,000 a year until 2020.

Tennis
Murray, Pavlyuchenkova advance in Indian Wells: Andy Murray of Scotland improved his 2009 record to 19-1 by grinding out a 7-5, 7-6 (8-6) victory over Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia in the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif. Murray made 15 unforced errors, compared with 40 for Ljubicic.

Murray next will play Switzerland’s Roger Federer, who beat Fernando Verdasco of Spain 6-3, 7-6 (7-5).

No. 42 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, a 17-year-old from Moscow, continued her run of upsets with a 7-6 (10-8), 6-4 victory over No. 10 Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland. Pavlyuchenkova, who knocked off No. 3 Jelena Jankovic in the second round, next faces defending champion Ana Ivanovic.

College athletics
Some schools are cutting ties with Russell Athletic: Joining a growing number of U.S. schools, Harvard cut ties with Russell Athletic after watchdog groups said the Atlanta-based maker of clothing harassed pro-union Honduran employees. According to the Workers Rights Consortium, a group that monitors labor conditions abroad for colleges, Russell spent two years trying to intimidate workers who attempted to unionize before closing the factory when they did.

“They’re well on their way to being the first company in history to be kicked out of collegiate sports because of their labor practices,” said Scott Nova, WRC executive director. “I can’t imagine their affiliates will be too happy about that, which includes the NBA and the NFL and others.”

Russell officials said they announced the closure of the factory in October because of falling demand for the fleece sewn there.

Eighteen major universities of the 186 colleges affiliated with the WRC have dropped Russell as a licensee, including Washington.

In addition to Washington and Harvard, other schools that have dropped Russell are: Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Houston, Miami, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Montana State, New York University, North Carolina, Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers and Wisconsin.

College wrestling
Iowa schools dominate: The NCAA championship tournament in St. Louis is becoming the Iowa Open.

Iowa State and defending champion Iowa were tied for the lead, each with 30 points, after the first day of the three-day meet. The unbeaten Hawkeyes sent six of nine qualifiers to the quarterfinals — with much better seeds than Iowa State, which had five qualifiers.

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Natasha Richardson with her husband Liam Neeson. Photograph: Joel Ryan/AP

• Actor was in intensive care after fall on ski slope
• Hospital says patient has been flown out of Canada

Natasha Richardson, the actor and wife of Liam Neeson, was reported last night to be critically ill after a skiing accident on a beginner’s run at a resort in Canada.

The 45-year-old, best known for her Shakespearean stage roles, had not been wearing a helmet when she slipped and fell on the slopes of the Mont Tremblant resort north of Quebec.

Her husband left the film set where he was working in Toronto and rushed to her hospital bedside amid reports that she had sustained serious and possibly life-threatening head injuries.

Concerns for her wellbeing grew throughout the day yesterday. Last night the Sacré Coeur hospital in Montreal, which had been treating her in intensive care, said she had left the country on a plane destined for the US.

She is now understood to be in the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

Richardson was with her sons – Michael Richard Antonio, 13, and Daniel Jack, 12 – when they left the Hotel Quintessence and set off for a ski lesson on Monday. The five-star boutique hotel, which boasts of a cellar full of vintage wines and of “spoiling [guests] right down to the heated ski boots and slippers waiting every morning in the lobby”, attracts a celebrity clientele.

Mont Tremblant is renowned for its severe winter frosts, although it is not known whether the slopes were particularly hard or icy at the time of the accident. It is regarded as a snow resort for families rather than a centre of off-piste activities for extreme sports enthusiasts.

The family were on a private ski lesson on the Nansen, a beginner’s run. Richardson was at the bottom of the slope in mid-afternoon when she lost her balance and nosedived down the hill. She did not hit anyone or anything before coming to a stop, according to resort spokeswoman Catherine Lacasse. The ski instructor was reportedly by her side within seconds.

She showed no external sign of injury or bleeding . “She was laughing and joking and she walked to her room on her own,” Lacasse told the Montreal Gazette.

Two ski patrollers stayed with Richardson but after an hour she began complaining of a headache and was taken to the Centre Hospitalier Laurentien, not far from the resort.

Delphine Elefante, the manager of the Quintessence, said Richardson and her sons had been staying at the hotel.

“She was taken away by ambulance,” Elefante said. “She’s in hospital now. We are very saddened by this. We hope all will be well.”

She was later transferred to the intensive care unit at Sacré Coeur Hospital in Montreal.

Relatives in Britain said they had not been told about the severity of her condition. “We know that she has had an accident but we really do not know any more details,” said Kika Markham, who is married to Richardson’s uncle, Corin Redgrave. “We are very concerned.”

Richardson comes from a renowned theatre dynasty – her mother is Vanessa Redgrave. Richardson was educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School in London and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Her stage performances feature leading Shakespearean roles, including Ophelia in Hamlet.
Safety off the piste

The fashion for protective helmets has grown as off-piste skiing has become more popular. Highly publicised reports of injuries and fatal collisions have also increased safety concerns. The Ski Club of Britain recommends children under 13 should wear helmets; its advice to adults is that headgear should be a matter of choice. “Out of 84,200 winter sports injuries recorded [globally] last season, 17,500 were head related,” the club’s website says. “It is believed that of those, 7,700 injuries and 11 deaths could have been avoided if they had been wearing a helmet.” About 1.3 million Britons travel abroad for winter sports holidays every year. Dr Mike Langran, a GP who studies alpine injury rates, estimates 10,000 Britons are injured annually while skiing. Betony Garner, of the Ski Club of Britain, said: “Off-piste skiers wear helmets these days and therefore if you wear one it looks quite cool.

“I have skied at Mont Tremblant. The pistes have a sugary sort of consistency but the piste-bashing machines should make sure they are not too hard.”
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