Selection Guidelines Definitions: 

• U14; Refers to athletes who are aged 12 and 13 as of December 31^st
• U16; Refers to athletes who are aged 14 and 15 as of December 31^st
• Alpine Ontario Alpin Athletic Committee (AOAAC); Refers to organization’s athletic committee and its representatives.
• Alpine Canada Alpin (ACA); Refers to the National Sport Organization (NSO) of alpine skiing, ski cross and para-alpine in Canada.
• Points; Alpine skiing is a sport based on time (as opposed to a sport like gymnastics for example) and thus can use all or any of following three methods in assigning points to athletes in order to rank and complete selections. It should be noted that AOA does not create these point systems themselves but rather are guided by its two governing bodies – FIS (International Federation) and ACA as to which points are used and when.
  • World Cup (WC) 500 Points; Refers to the series point system which can also be found on the FIS circuit. Points are awarded based an athlete’s finish position. The full table can be found here.
  • National Points; Refers to points awarded based on an athlete’s finish position at any National Carded Race. National Carded Races are those set by ACA and start at the U14 level and run through to U19/21. The points can be found on http://alpinepoints.ca/
  • Race Points; Refers to points awarded based on a result from a single sanctioned national point race.
• Seeding; Refers to the order in which athletes start an event.
• Tie Break; Refers to the process used to break a tie between two or more equally pointed athletes.
• Event; Refers to a complete race.
• Quota; Refers to the number of athletes permitted to start at a given race. This may be based on region, gender, team or event.
• Run; Refers to a single run of an event.
• Slalom (SL); Refers to the alpine skiing discipline.
• Giant Slalom (GS); Refers to the alpine skiing discipline.
• Super G (SG); Refers to the alpine skiing discipline.
• Dual Slalom (Dual); Refers to the alpine skiing discipline.
• Ski Cross (SX); Refers to the alpine skiing discipline.

Selection Objectives

Alpine Ontario Alpin (AOA) creates athletic programming and pathways to ensure Ontario athletes have the best possible environment in which to perform to the best of their abilities.  High-performance opportunities at the U14 age groups provide our top performing athletes with a platform to test themselves against the best in North America and beyond.  These early career high-performance opportunities establish critical benchmarks for athletes to continue to improve upon and to inspire and motivate them to strive for excellence in ski racing.

It is important to note that if these benchmarks are not met at this stage of development it does not mean that the skier will not have an opportunity to participate in the AOA high-performance plan in the future. It simply shows where the athlete is at in their development and could motivate them to work harder, train differently or set new goals.

Once applied, the selection criteria outlined here create teams for competition that achieve the following 7 objectives:

1. Identify the strongest possible team for the event at this stage of their development
2. Control the number of participants at an event to maintain quality and safety for those participating
3. Identify skiers at the Train to Train stage of development that are mature enough to handle the workload of more events and higher intensity at this stage
4. Create a training group for pre-competition preparation
5. Create a progression for athletes on the AOA high-performance pathway
6. Unify athletes to represent the province of Ontario
7. Provide equal quota for males and females

Rules

For all relevant information for the U14 programming rules in Ontario please click here.  Included in these rules are course setting, training, competition rules, and equipment details.  To be considered for any of the opportunities outlined below, a fitness test must be submitted to AOA admin@alpineontario.local no later than Dec 31, 2021.  Click here for the fitness testing protocol.

Appeals

The AOA Athletic Committee will hold back 13% of the total Ontario quota per event: 50/50 per gender, to be used in the event of injury, illness, or extenuating circumstances*.  The remaining spots will be reallocated by gender at the discretion of the AOA Athletic Committee. The committee will review all appeals which must be submitted in writing with appropriate and relevant substantiating data to the AOA Athletic Committee (via the AOA Athletic Director) based on dates stated per event outlined in this document. * Extenuating circumstances do not include appeals based on athletic performances.

Tie Break Protocol

Tie breaks for event selection will be dealt with in the following manner:

1. AOA will ask for an additional quota spot from the event sanctioning body/race organizing committee.
2. If no additional spot is available, a tie will be broken by the best race point* acquired in relevant selection data, continuing on to next best race point until the tie is broken. *Race points cannot be applied to partial results (i.e. single run SL or GS)

Tie breaks for event seeding will be dealt with in the following manner based on the relevant seeding data:

• 1^st tie-break next best combined finish in the disputed discipline.
• 2^nd tie break, best run score in the disputed discipline.
• 3^rd tie break, second best run score in the disputed discipline.
• 4^th tie break, name to be drawn from a hat at seeding meeting, the first name drawn is seeded ahead of the tied athlete in the disputed discipline.

**In the event that only one SG result is available, GS results will be utilized for tie break purposes.

Dual Scoring

A Dual will be scored in the following manner:

• 1-8 are placed into knock out stages (1vs 8, 2vs 7 etc.) winner advances to semi finals,
• racers knocked out in round one are awarded 5th – 8th based on rank finish of combined qualifying runs,
• Semi finals (1vs.4, 2vs.3) winners move to ‘Big Finals’
• Semi finals losers to ‘Small Final’.
• 1st – 4th are awarded based on results of Big and Small Final.
• 9- 60 are awarded points based on qualifying runs.

EVENTS

U14 OCUP FINALS
Dates:  March 10-13, 2022
Location:  Camp Fortune, Quebec.
Events:  Two (2) Super-G’s including training day, one (1) GS, one (1) SL, one (1) Dual SL.
Quota: Due to the large size of this event, a quota per division will be implemented to ensure race quality and safety remain a top priority for this event.  This will be reviewed on a year to year basis and may be altered based on venue and ROC capacity. A minimum field size of 150 for the 2022 event to be re-assessed by mid January by AOA and the ROC.
Quota*: The quota will be (proposed): SOD – 104, NOD – 14, LSDA – 12, NCD – 22= 152. Even numbers for gender split.

*All unused quota will be reassigned to the host division 

Selections & Seeding: Selections and seeding within each division at the OCUP finals are determined by the respective divisions for each athlete. Please see your divisional selection guideline documents for more information.
Seeding: Seeding* for the SG, GS and SL will be done based on NOD 2, LSDA 2, NCD 3, and SOD 8 per seed of 15.
OCUP FINALS OVERALL TITLE: This will be awarded to the top 3 athletes with the total event points (using WC 500 point system) from the SL, the SG , the GS, and the Dual using 2 run combined WC point result for all disciplines.  In the event of a tie, the athlete’s top single result from the four scores will be used to break the tie.
Qualifier: The OCUP Finals is a qualifying race for the U14 Can Am Event.

U14 CAN AM EVENT – International Race
Dates: March 31-April 3 , 2022
Location:  Sunday River, Maine, USA.
Events: 1 GS, 1 SL, 1 Super-G, 1 Skills Competition.
Quota: The Ontario quota will be 30 athletes, comprised of 15 Males and 15 Females who will be known as “Team Ontario”. Athletes will be selected from the U14 OCUP Finals (March 9 -13, 2022).
Selections:  Will be posted on Thursday March 18^th, 2022. Selections are based on results from the U14 OCUP FINALS using the following methods:

1. Athletes will be awarded points using the World Cup 500 point system.
2. The sum of the following two calculations are used to create the Can Am qualifying list of athletes.

• Calculation 1 is using the best 3 of 6 runs. Maximum of one (1) run from the Dual. *SG may not be used as a single run score
• Calculation 2 is using the best 2 of 4 “event results” (meaning the athlete finishes both runs). Points are awarded for completed events which can include SG, GS, SL or Dual.

Seeding:  Seeding will be based on the U14 OCUP Finals whereby athletes will be ranked individually by their event result in that discipline.

Appeals: Appeals must be submitted in writing with appropriate and relevant substantiating data to the AOA Athletic Committee (via the AOA Athletic Director) no later than March 18, 2022 at 5pm.

Automatic quota: Divisions have automatic quota for this event is: NOD – 1, LSDA – 1, NCD – 1, SOD – 4. These spots will go to the top appointed athlete(s) from each Division from the provincial championship event.  Should any Division wish to use their automatic quota for an athlete that does not qualify through the posted selection criteria they must submit, in writing, a request, along with supporting data, and get approval from the AOA Athletic Committee.

CANCELLED WHISTLER CUP – International Children’s FIS Race

Dates: April 7-10, 2022

Location: Whistler, B.C.

Events: SL, GS and Kombi/Parallel SL.

Quota: AOA will enter two (2) “Team Ontario” athletes based on the top six (6) male and the top six (6) female athletes from the U14 Can Am qualifying list.
Selections: Selections are based on the same selection criteria guidelines as those used for the Can Am qualifying list.

Please note: These entries will be in the athlete’s name only; AOA will not manage these athletes, nor travel with them. Instead athletes will remain with their club program and coaches. This will allow the AOA clubs to expand their opportunities for entries to U14 Whistler Cup.
Seeding: Seeding is done in priority of National, Provincial then Club quota spots

NOTE: The Alpine Ontario Coaches Committee will review the Whistler Cup as an event on a yearly basis moving forward.