The thrill of victory....the agony of defeat!

Many Belgians enjoy taking a winter break to go skiing or snowboarding in the Alps or the Pyrenees. While most of them survive their week on the slopes unscathed, some have to be bought home on the special "plaster flights" that are laid on to transport injured skiers and snowboarders.
With more people having opted to take a winter break during the half term school holidays, the number of Belgians being flown back from the slopes with one or more of their limbs in plaster has gone up by 10%.
Belgian travel insurance companies generally fly the inured holiday-makers home on special flights. Eurocross brought around 90 injured skiers home on Friday. Belgium's biggest travel insurer Europe Assistance has repatriated around 200 victims of skiing and snowboarding accidents.
A spokeswoman for the travel and motoring association Touring that organises flights on behalf or the insurance companies says that there has been a particularly big rise in the number of snowboarders injured. The majority of those returning home with broken limbs are between 15 and 25 years old.

Alps tunnel opens

The world’s longest land tunnel, through the Alps, opened yesterday. The 35km (21mile) Loetschberg tunnel took eight years to build and cost about 4.3 billion Swiss francs (£1.7 billion). High-speed trains from Germany, France and Italy will get skiers to Swiss ski resorts more quickly.

President Bush immediately announced he saw a light at the end of it and he would stand down as the Swiss stood up.