With just one month till the Winter Olympics in Sochi (RUS) and the official qualification competitions underway right now in various far-flung winter destinations, Australia’s Olympic selectors are quietly confident that we will be fielding our best team to date; a team with a real chance of being in the top 15 nations medal count. Well, that’s the plan and I have no doubt our female competitors will be leading the charge.
If you haven’t heard of Lydia, Torah, or Anna, Britt or Katya I suggest you catch up on these soon-to-be household names because, come February, a little town in Russia is set to stage the most expensive games in history and these women are competing at the top of their game right now.
Four years ago in Vancouver Lydia Lassila and Torah Bright each won a Gold Medal (Aerials and Snowboard Halfpipe respectively) and both events were nail-biters to say the least; Bright had suffered a concussion in training and crashed in her first run in the final and Lydia was on the come-back trail looking for the gold that had eluded her after a devastating crash four years before that in Torino, Italy.
If you want to see what they did next, how high they did it or just get a little patriotic before the next Olympics, check out these videos of their 2010 wins.
Lassila and Bright joined the ranks of our elite winter athletes, taking their place in history along side Zali Steggall (Australia’s first individual Winter medal) and Alisa Camplin (Australia’s first Winter gold and a dual medallist) and you can bet that their story has a few more chapters to go.
Our country’s medal prospects have grown in line with the expansion of snowboard and freestyle skiing categories – moguls, aerials, halfpipe, skicross and boardercross in the last few Olympics and this year sees the introduction of more categories – ski slopestyle, snowboard slopestyle and ski halfpipe. Confused yet? The good news is, training for these events doesn’t require a lot of snowy terrain like the traditional Alpine ski racing events.
You can expect to see a host of new Aussie names up in lights as these disciplines make their Olympic debut. And if you want to know just who they are, I suggest you start here — by bookmarking a few blogs or facebook pages or twitter handles … it’s so much more exciting when you know the players.
The Olympic team will be announced in late January and the games begin on the 7 February.
Who to watch
Anna Segal has qualified for the Australian Winter Olympic Team in the Ski Slopestyle event for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Anna Segal is good at coming first — this Melbourne Uni student bagged gold when slopestyle was first introduced at the Winter X Games and did the same when FIS debuted slopestyle at the World Ski Championships in 2011. She wasn’t able to defend her title this year, due to injury, but Segal is undoubtdedly eyeing up the Olympic podium and wishing that good things come in 3’s.
Australian skicross athlete Katya Crema. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Katya Crema was Australia’s fastest female Alpine skier when she decided to have a shot at ski cross – describing it as “motorcross on skis” — and take a tilt at Olympic glory. Crema gives as good as she gets in this fast paced adrenalin sport and has steadily moved up the world ranking since her debut at the Vancouver Olympics where she finished 15th overall.
Australian Ski Cross Athlete and dual Winter Olympian, Jenny Owens. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Jenny Owens will be competing in her third Olympics when she arrives in Russia next year. After 20 years of international competitive skiing and appearances at the Salt Lake City and Vancouver Winter Olympics (competing in Alpine 2002 and Ski Cross 2010) Owens is hoping to complete the hat-trick with Sochi.
Britt Cox of the Australian Moguls Team. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Britt Cox was the second youngest athlete to represent Australia at a Winter Olympics and the youngest competitor at the 2010 Vancouver Games at just 15 years old. She is also Australia’s first female World Cup medallist in mogul skiing and is so far having a strong 13/14 season.
Sami Kennedy-Sim’s 2011/12 season was her best to date, posting six top 10 finishes in world cup races to finish the season ranked 11th overall in ski cross. In April 2013 Kennedy-Sim suffered a minor infarct stroke and after a few months of light training is back to her full training lode, with a determination to get back to her previous form and make the team.
Lauren Staveley competes during qualifying for the womens FIS Snowboard Slopestyle World Cup in December 2013. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
Lauren Staveley made her World Championship debut this year in Canada where she finished 13th in the snowboard slopestyle competition. She spends half the year in Colorado and is aiming, along with her younger brother Cameron, to make the Olympic team for next year. Little brother Luke is aiming for the 2018 Olympics.
Amy Sheehan during a practice run prior to at the U.S. Snowboarding and Freeskiing Grand Prix in December 2013. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)
Amy Sheehan grew up in Byron Bay and now calls NZ home. Her brother is on the Kiwi Team but luckily for us Amy skis for Australia. She just had her first World Cup Podium in Calgary over the weekend (Friday), placing 3rd in the Halfpipe event and, as this is an official FIS-sanctioned Olympic qualifying event, things are looking pretty exciting for her (and Australia) right now.