The snowstorm over Europe last weekend is expected to continue. Switzerland and Italy should receive the most snow, with over 80cm forecast at some resorts.

In the French Alps, Chamonix and Argentiere are expecting 68cm of new snow to fall by the coming weekend. Most of this expected to fall over Monday but Thursday and Friday are looking very snowy as well, with 38cm falling over these two days. It should also turn a lot colder by the end of the week, after a brief warm spell on Wednesday.

Canada’s Manuel Osborne-Paradis claimed the World Cup super-G at Lake Louise. Victory celebrations were muted by an injury to team mate John Kucera.

Canada’s downhill world champion Kucera is in danger of missing next year’s Vancouver Olympics after breaking his leg in a high-speed fall.

Kucera was airlifted from the Lake Louise course to a nearby hospital after crashing into the safety netting during the race.

“John Kucera has a left leg fracture that will require surgery,” said Alpine Canada in a statement. There was no immediate comment on whether he would be able to compete at the Olympics, starting in February.

If you weren’t able to read Snow Menu this week, then don’t worry!

Here’s a quick recap of the best news that you may want to check out.

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Swiss veteran Didier Cuche blitzed to victory in the season-opening men’s World Cup downhill at Lake Louise.

The 35-year-old Cuche, who clocked a time of one minute 50.31 seconds in lightly-falling snow to notch up his 11th career victory, become the oldest ever winner of a World Cup downhill.

Italy’s Werner Heel, who closed last season with a super-G victory at the World Cup finals, was back on the podium, taking second in 1:50.75 just ahead of Swiss Carlo Janka, runner-up in Lake Louise a year ago.

Led by Cuche, it was a superb day in the Canadian Rockies for the Swiss who had five skiers in the top 11. Ambrosi Hoffmann came home fifth, Tobias Gruenenfelder was ninth and Patrick Kueng 11th.

“I’ve been frustrated here at Lake Louise, particularly in the downhill,” said Cuche, who also won the season-opening giant slalom in Soelden. “But never give up and it happened today.

“The Swiss team was so strong today; we have seven guys in the top 20. I’m confident now so we will see what will happen in the next days and weeks. Tomorrow is another day and I will do my best.”

Michael Walchhofer and Bode Miller set the pace for the season-opening men’s World Cup downhill by clocking the fastest times in final training at Lake Louise — the course where they both had their maiden downhill wins.

Walchhofer, a winner on Whitehorn mountain in 2003 and the reigning World Cup downhill champion, signalled he was ready to defend his crown with the hard-charging Austrian clocking a time of one minute 50.66 seconds.

Miller, who claimed back-to-back victories in Lake Louise in 2004 capturing the downhill and super-G, also looked in superb early season form crossing in 1:51.25 just in front of Italy’s Werner Heel.

Further evidence that the aviation industry is enjoying better times comes with the announcement that Swiss are launching a 6 daily service from London Heathrow to Geneva from 10th January.

This is great news for skiers. Swiss have genuine claims to be Europe’s ‘skiers airline’ and are one of the few remaining airlines still carrying skis and baggage free of charge.

Extra Heathrow capacity should help keep prices in check on this busy route, and offer a better range of timings.

After a tense few weeks with temperatures rising after the heavy snowfall at the start of the month, there have been big new snowfalls across the Alps.

Chamonix was a big winner with 50cm of new snow at mid-mountain yesterday and other resorts like Val d’Isere in France, Corvara in Italy and Solden in Austria have all reported a foot or more of new snow in recent days.

For some the snow and colder temperatures is a little late and St Anton, Lech and Courmayeur have announced they need to delay their openings for at least a week having originally planned to open this weekend.

One of the most promising starts to the season looks to be Ischgl, where Katy Perry will perform to an estimated 20,000 fans on opening day, this Saturday.

Unlike at most other resorts, all the lifts and runs are expected to be open, linking Ischgl up to Samnaun over the border in Switzerland, which will be staging it’s own seasoin-opener, the annual Santa Claus world Championships, this weekend too.

http://www.chamonix.com/

Jason Lamy-Chappuis is feeling in good shape ahead of the opening event of the Nordic Combined World Cup in Kuusamo this weekend.

French number one Chappuis has fond memories of Kuusamo after collecting his maiden World Cup victory at the Finnish venue in 2006.

He said: “After five days in Finland last week, mostly undertaking jumping exercises on the 90 metre hill, we had a little competition.