Discipline: Cross Country

Olympic Participation: Torino 2006, Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014

Esther became the first female cross country skier in Australia to compete in three Olympic Games, a record that she still keeps.

Esther was introduced to the sport at the age of 5 when her family moved to Mount Beauty and friends that they met were all Birkebeiner club members, who subsequently took Ester and her family cross country skiing.

Esther was the winner of the Inaugural Australian Sprint Championships in 2000 and would go on to win many more Australian titles.

Two years later she competed in her first World Junior Championships. One of her career highlights is from her second World Juniors where she says “my highlight result was World Juniors in Sweden, my second World Juniors, and I came 21^st on my 20^th birthday. The year before I had crashed in the sprint race and it was a bit of a disaster so that race was the last chance I got, and it went really well so I was pretty excited about that result”.

Making her World Cup debut in 2004, Esther went on to compete in 47 World Cups in her career. Her best World Cup finish was 18th in a team sprint event at Canada in 2009. Her best individual result was a 33rd in 2011 at the World Cup in Liberec, The Czech Republic, just outside the top 30 needed to contest the head-to-head Sprint finals.

Her debut Olympics was in Torino in 2006 where she placed 52nd in the 1.5km Sprint. At the Vancouver 2010 Games she came 50th in the 1.5km Sprint Classic. At her third Olympics in Sochi she finished 56th in the Sprint event and went on to record a 61st place finish in the 10km Classic. Her debut Olympics were quite emotional for Esther, as she reminisces “the big emotional highlight of my career was Turin. Walking into the Turin Olympics opening ceremony and being right at the front near the stage, I saw my skiing hero Stefania Belmondo light the Olympic flame just 10meters ahead of us, so that was pretty cool. Racing in Turin I also had all of my family there, and that was the first time they had watched me overseas. They travelled to a few of the races leading up and said to me, ‘wow, you really just come here and train and race!’, and while I didn’t have my best races as I was a bit sick, it was really great to have your family come out and actually see what you do”.

Esther made 7 appearances at the World Championships, with her best finish a 50th twice, both in the sprint event in 2003 and 2005.

Esther was the winner of the Women's Kangaroo Hoppet in 2010 and 2011. Esther recollects “my other career highlight was the very first Kangaroo Hoppet that I won in 2010. Valerio (my husband) was out that year and that was the first one that he won as well, and so that one was very very special, and it was just a beautiful day, beautiful snow, and was just good fun to get a home Hoppet in. It’s always the best event because all of your friends are there and it’s just so fun”.

Reflecting on her time travelling with, the Australian Cross Country , Esther says “I travelled with a lot of different teams because I stuck with the sport for 17 consecutive winters and then a few more years after that, so not all of those were with the Australian team. I did enjoy travelling with the Aussie Team quite a lot. There were certain seasons that were a lot of fun and it was always great to have people that were really motivated in the sport surrounding you. For the rest of the season when you’re at home, a lot of the training you do on your own, and I was also emersed in University, so a lot of people there aren’t training athletes! So it was always really great when you go overseas and everyone’s focused on the same thing, it was good fun. Some of my overseas trips were with guys from the Aussie Team, so when we were juniors the trips were mostly based in Sweden, then later on the team was mostly based around central Europe, and outside of the Australian Team I also lived in a ski gymnasium in Sweden for six months”.

What advice does Esther have for aspiring future skiers?

“I would just say do it while you love it! If you love the sport, then have a good crack. You’ve got to train hard and smart, but most of all you’ve got to just enjoy the process and for me that was the key. I loved it, at first I loved the racing, then I loved the racing and the training, and by the end I really enjoyed the training but the racing was on its way out so it was the perfect time to finish up. So I think if you can love the sport then go for it and just give it your all”.