Aidan & Luke Wilkins have just competed in four FIS International Youth Series Snow Sports Races across Europe. The races were held within Andorra, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and they achieved top 15 results in all races they completed in.

The best results being in Bosnia, where Luke achieved 1st place in the U14 Slalom and Aidan achieved 3rd place in the U16 Slalom. There was between 15 to 25 of the best skiing nations with their top skiers from each country at these FIS events.

"All the races were sponsored by the country of location including accommodation, meals and organisation. There were opening ceremonies and parades through the streets at most of the events and the first race was in the small nation of Andorra in the Pyrenees with 4 days of racing.  Luke achieved a 5^th place and Aidan achieved a 2^nd place but crashed in his second run.

Two weeks later after a training stint in Austria, they moved onto Slovenia where they built a temporary small ski slope under a castle leading down to the village for a night slalom team event where thousands of people turned up to watch. This event has been running for 45 years with the rising superstar of woman’s skiing kiwi Alice Robertson winning it three years ago. On the proper slopes in the days following, Luke competed but unfortunately DNF’d in all of his races and Aidan made some small mistakes but still finished in the top 15.  Each race had approximately 60 competitors. 

The third race was held on a mountain above the famous city of Zagrab in Croatia, on a slope that had completely man-made salted snow. This event had TV broadcasting and was held on a slope where one of the World Cup slalom events was held earlier in the season. Both Luke & Aidan achieved top 15 places, again in tricky icy conditions.  The NZ team came fifth overall at this event.

The last event in Bosnia was held on the same slopes as the 1986 winter's Olympics on a mountain above the historical city of Sarajevo. The boys finally managed to put together some good clean consistent two run skiing which paid off with Luke acheiving 1^st  and Aidan 3^rd in the Slalom.  The NZ team came overall 3^rd at this event. These three youth races were a series known as “children for peace”.

After the racing events, Luke remains in Austria training with some local Austrians and his NZ coach before heading to the United States then Vancouver in April. Aidan will re-join the New Zealand team in the United States in April before also heading to Vancouver a week later" - Tim Wilkins

Article added: Monday 09 March 2020