The British Ski and Board Show kicks off this today and runs until Sunday 1st November.

Amazing features include the return of the gravity defying Big Air Freestyle display team, sponsored by Italy’s Aosta Valley, featuring Olympic and World Champions on Europe’s largest indoor ski ramp.

On the Skills Slope, Ackers Adventure’s instructors will be giving free skiing and snowboarding lessons as well as organising toboggan runs while International instructors will demonstrate all aspects of skiing from the basics to making those tight turns on the new style indoor ski slope.

Greece handed the Olympic flame to Canada, hosts of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, on Thursday for the longest domestic torch relay ever ahead of the February 12 opening ceremony.

The peaceful handover ceremony in Athens’ Panathenian stadium, site of the first modern Olympics in 1896, concluded an eight-day torch relay in Greece.

High Priestess Maria Nafpliotou, an actress, and priestesses holding olive-tree branches performed a ritual surrounding the altar, after 18-year-old figure skater Niki Georgiadou brought the flame into the windy stadium.

Ski-cross deserves its Olympic status and will offer a spectacular show at next year’s Vancouver Games, says France’s Ophelie David, the exciting young sport’s undisputed queen.

Four skiers hurtle down a twisty, bumpy track shoulder-to-shoulder with winners of heats eventually progressing to the final.

The sport will be making its Olympic debut two years after its Summer Games equivalent, BMX or bicycle motocross, successfully did so in Beijing.

Our featured open European summer skiing destinations offered great early season riding on Thursday. This included the French glaciers which, despite having a thin snow base, benefitted from the recent cold weather and snowfall.

The glacier resorts with the best conditions in Europe this week are in Austria, Switzerland and Italy.

All of our reported Australian resorts are now closed for snowsports.

They may not yet be open but enthusiastic locals have been hiking up the slopes at Vail in order to get ‘fresh tracks’ on the heavy snow that has been falling across much of Colorado including Vail’s four resorts in the state.

Keystone opens for the 2009–2010 season on Friday, November 6, followed closely by Breckenridge on Thursday, November 12. Vail and Heavenly are set to open November 20 and Beaver Creek will open November 25.

Heavy snow has been reported in western Canada and a week of fresh snowfalls in many northern hemisphere ski areas including Colorado, parts of the Alps and Japan.

With Kitzbuhel’s earliest ever opening at the weekend, following the Planai above Schladming the week before that, as well as seven glaciers areas to choose from, Austria continues to offer the biggest choice of skiing in the Alps.

A new study by ‘two-for-one’ ski equipment rental business Ski Republic and the Ski Club of Great Britain has found that less than half of British skiers wear ski helmets, despite a greatly heightened awareness of the danger and risk of head injury to skiers in recent years.

“Around 44% of skiers and boarders wear helmets” said Betony Garner of the Ski Club of Great Britain, “We urge people to take the risks very seriously and advise that all children under 13 wear ski helmets this winter and adults do so at their own discretion”.

Athletes and spectators will be encouraged to get vaccinated against the H1N1 flu before travelling to next year’s Winter Olympics in Vancouver, an official has said.

The hundreds of volunteers and staff scheduled to work during the February Games are also being urged to get vaccinated as part of Canada’s national immunization effort, which began this week.

An estimated 5,500 athletes and team officials are scheduled to be in Vancouver next year for the 17 days of competitions and they will be joined by thousands of media and spectators from around the world.