Australia’s snow sports athletes enjoying record-breaking year as they prepare for Winter Olympics

While you were sleeping, Australia’s snow sports athletes have been shredding down the world’s mountains, and shredding the record books in the process.

Australian athletes, led by a couple of gun 22 year olds Britt Cox and Scotty James, have collected 32 medals on the 2016-17 World Cup circuit — nine more than our previous best-ever season, 13 years ago, with two rounds to go in some disciplines.

Cox, a moguls skier from Falls Creek, and James, the world and X Games champion in Snowboard Halfpipe, have won the World Cup globe in their events as the top ranked competitor. Cox, who equalled Alisa Camplin’s national record of seven World Cup wins in one season, was awarded the World Cup Freestyle Crystal Globe, as the world’s most dominant athlete across all six freestyle skiing disciplines.

Australia has several more chances of overall Globe glory this season. Snowboard cross racer Belle Brockhoff (2 rounds left) and aerial skier Danielle Scott (1 round remaining) lead their standings, while Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin and Jarryd Hughes are still in contention in the men’s Snowboard Cross, and Russ Henshaw is a chance in slopestyle skiing.

Britt Cox has won seven World Cup events this season, and the overall skier of the year award.

While the World Cup globes reward competitors across the season, the athletes will also contest world championships in their disciplines this month, with the ultimate goal of the Olympic Games looming 11 months down the hill. Australia’s best Olympic Games gold medal return has been two in 2002 and 2010. In Sochi 2014 we went without a gold medal, a situation that looks unlikely heading into PyeongChang 2018.

The most encouraging facet of this season is the span of medal winners, with 12 different athletes standing on the podium. So why the great leap forward this northern winter?

THE STRATEGY IS WORKING

Former alpine skier Steven Lee was an Australian trail blazer on the World Cup tour, and an Olympian three times in 1984-1992, at a time when the world snow sports program was much smaller.

Lee felt he was “one man alone out there in the World Cup for the majority of my career,” with so few Australian competitors.

The big change that has benefited Australia was the expansion of the disciplines on offer, and Australia’s strategic decision to concentrate on them.

“The difference is variety of sports you can mould yourself into,” Lee tells foxsports.com.au. “In my era there was really only ski racing. Moguls wasn’t a thing, freestyle wasn’t a thing, there wasn’t ski cross or aerials. There wasn’t snowboard, that was in very much junior stages and it was still banned in a lot of areas until the mid 1980s.

“Australia has done very well, and been smart, in putting a lot of money into the smaller and ‘softer’ events where we can put a good program together and target success.

“We’ve done really well in identifying the athletes who have come from alpine — like Belle Brockhoff who was a very good alpine skier and then moved into snowboard in interschool competitions. Britt was a really good racer. Australia has done a really good job in creating really good avenues for athletes to go into the various disciplines and expand their talent and follow their passions.”

The 2010 Olympic aerials champion Lydia Lassila recently returned to competition after taking three years off following a bronze medal in Sochi, and won two of her comeback events to give herself a chance of third in the overall standings this season, as well as putting her firmly in the frame for a world championship. She, like most of our successful aerial competitors, came to snow sports late after finding early success in gymnastics. Snow programs continue to target gymnasts in their early teens, and the success of Lassila is a perfect lure.

Lassila, aiming for her fifth Olympics next year, believes Australia is seeing a gradual progression of talent.

Australian freestyle skiers Samantha Wells, David Morris, Laura Peel, Danielle Scott and Lydia Lassila pose at Phoenix Park ahead of the FIS World Cup Aerials on February 7, 2017 in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
“In Sochi those top six athletes are now top three and that’s why you’re hearing about them,” she says. “They were consistently in the top 10 for a few years and now the top 3 and podiums. They’ve been progressing that whole time.

“If you look at Britt, she was 15 at her first Olympics. She’s been doing mogul skiing for a long time now. If you look at her graph over the years from Vancouver [2010] to now it’s been steadily climbing. She had a few podiums last year, top 6 finishes, a lot of finals. It’s just clicked for her. She’s becoming stronger and stronger and that’s the same for a lot of our athletes.”

Lee agrees that we’re seeing the result of steady years of graft by coaches and athletes.

“At the back end it’s lots of hard work and crunching numbers and getting coaches and making sure the programs are in place for them to keep rising to the level they need to,” he says. “It’s a combined effort and we’re doing the best we can with the talent we have and putting them into good programs.

“There’s no doubt changes to World Cup and Championships and Olympics that the winter fraternity have embraced has been a plus for Australia. We’ve been an early adaptor in freestyle and snowboard programs, leading the way in a lot of respect over the bigger snow nations. It’s kudos to a lot of people.”

‘WE’RE A FAMILY’

“We have a few people still ask us if there’s snow in Australia,” Brockhoff, who leads the snowboard cross world standings, tells foxsports.com.au. “They want to know, where do you guys train? There’s still a lot of that and we just say, ‘there’s a couple of good mountains around’.”

But the fact there are only a couple of mountains means the talent concentrates there in the early life of our snow sports athletes. When they broaden their horizons they stay close, regardless of their disciplines.

“We’re a family,” says Lassila. “ We support each other and every time I see an Aussie on the podium it lifts me and I’m sure it’s the same for the other athletes. We know each other intimately. We’re not always on the same tour but spending that time at the Olympics is a real important time to team build and get to know other athletes. We have a few events every year that bring us together. It’s more of a family feel because it’s significantly smaller, but if you look at the results at the moment, for such a small team, we are really hitting above our weight.”

“It’s a small community,” says Lee. “Most of the kids grow up in race club programs and in the last 15 years the interschool competition has been a major part of it. A lot of them have been skiing together since they were 10 or 12.

“Chumpy [Pullin], Belle, Britt, Matt Graham, have known each other since they were little tackers. When they start coming through and having success there’s a real bond that’s been created over the years.”

Brockhoff says the camaraderie is fostered by athletes from different disciplines training with each other off the snow.

“Moguls, aerials, ski and boarder cross … we’ll do sessions together and it’s really cool because it gets you into a different environment and keeps everything interesting,” says Brockhoff.

“It’s good to compare each other, where we’re stronger than each other, work on that and make each other better from that.

“And as a group we’re doing a lot better. We’ve got a few leaders on tour which is great. The girls are pumping out good results, the guys are pumping out good results. I’m not sure what’s changed but I think it’s just experience of the guys coming through — three years on from Sochi and that’s a lot.”

IT’S A SMALL WORLD

Part of the progression in Australian snow sports is down to the accessibility of the world’s mountains.

“I was 14 before I’d even skied another resort in Australia other than Falls Creek,” says Lee, who runs ski guiding businesses there and in Hakuba, Japan.

“Most kids at 14 now have skied plenty of places in the world if they’re into it. That’s changed dramatically. You’re more aware of what’s in the world and you’re seeing the global talent pool.”

Brockhoff, whose uncle Peter was a pioneer Olympic skier in 1960 and 1964, is part of that new generation of frequent flyer little shredders.

“It’s been part of my life since I was 10 — going overseas, doing the domestic season at Mt Buller and Hotham,” she says. “I can’t get enough at it, I just kept doing it.”

THE PROFILE IN AUSTRALIA

“It’s a lot better than what it was 15 years ago,” says Lassila of snow sports’ standing in the Australian culture. “If you look back then Steven Bradbury won our first gold medal at an Olympics.

“The profile of winter sport with a lot of champions we’ve had over the years since Steven — Alisa Camplin, Jacqui Cooper, Torah Bright and a whole array of new champions right now … Britt, Chumpy, Belle . there’s lists and lists.

“People don’t understand it enough in Australia because it’s foreign to a lot of people sitting in northern Queensland or WA where they can’t really relate. And it’s about education, it’s about exposure in the media, print or on TV, just showing events so people can understand them a bit better not just once every four years at the Olympics. It’s important to start showing these sports more regularly so people can follow them and the athletes.

“I’d love more snow content and that would help elevate profile and educate people and give them more understanding of what’s involved. They’re exciting sports and everyone loves watching them in the Olympics. They’re pretty wild. They’re high risk sports as well compared to a lot of summer sports, there’s big risk and big reward as well.

“Yes, it has frustrated me. We don’t have overnight champions. The athletes now that are competing and winning World Cups and championships and X Games have been going for some time now. Against the odds, being Australian, not having the access to the mountains that the Canadians or Americans or Europeans do, and we’re winning and we’re good and dominating. How’s that! How did that happen?”

THE 2016-17 HONOUR ROLL

World Cup standings

Globe winners: Scotty James (snowboard halfpipe), Britt Cox (mogul skiing)

Rankings leaders: Danielle Scott (leads Leads Mengtao Xu by 2 points with 1 event to go); Belle Brockhoff (snowboard cross).

Top 10 ranked: Matt Graham finished 3rd in mogul skiing; Lydia Lassila ranked 3rd in aerial skiing with 1 event left; Alex Pullin 4th in snowboard cross with 2 events to go, Jarryd Hughes 6th with two events to go); Russ Henshaw 7th in slopestyle skiing with 1 event to go).

Medal winners 2016-17: Danielle Scott, Lydia Lassila, Samantha Wells (all aerial skiing); Britt Cox Brodie Summers, matt Graham (all mogul skiing); Sami Kennedy-Sim (Ski cross), Russ Henshaw (slopestyle ski); Scotty James (snowboard halfpipe); Alex Pullin, Belle Brockhoff, Jarryd Hughes (Snowboard cross).

Article courtesy of Tony Harper, Fox Sports & Courier Mail

Image: Scott James at Winter X Games