Minnows take on the big guns and come away with glory
Published Thu 05 Sep 2024
It’s over 350km from Wangaratta’s Cathedral College to the slopes of Perisher but for George Walker, it feels like home.
The Moguls skier spends his winters based in Perisher and had even had some local advantage today at the Subaru Australian Interschools Snowsports Championships as he regularly trains on Mogul Matts, where today’s competition was staged.
Walker took silver in the Male Division 2 competition, just 0.14 points behind Milan Davies from St Andrews Cathedral School in the heart of Sydney’s CBD.
The teenager is proud to be the only male from his school competing at Perisher this week, and was thrilled to ski his way onto the podium.
“It’s been really good to see kids from quite a rural school coming up to get on the slopes,” George said after being given his medal by Snow Australia President Daniel Bosco.
“Our school supports us in our training and I actually live here full time during season.
“The support we get from the school to be able to be able to push us to train here and not say ‘no, you need to stay at school’ has been really fun.
Coming from even further afield are the athletes who hail from the Tuggerah Lakes Secondary College on the NSW Central Coast.
The Tumbi Umbi-based school is nearly 600km from Perisher and is more known for producing surfers and footy players, with snowsports not even listed as one of the 19 sport offerings at the school.
However Phoenix Clucas and Summer Martin (pictured) may well change that after taking home a swag of medals from Perisher today.
This morning they claimed team gold in Female Snowboard Cross Division 3 on the back of Summer finishing second in the individual event - just 0.06 away from first - while Clucas took the bronze.
As if that wasn’t enough, they backed up in the afternoon for more team gold, this time in the Female Snowboard GS Division 3, Phoenix setting the fastest time of each of her runs to win the individual while Summer was fourth overall.
Asked whether they were well known at their school for their non-traditional sporting exploits, the pair didn’t think they’d get much of a look-in.
“No.. they don’t know,” said Phoenix. “Sometimes people just send us screenshots from us on the podium but no one at school really knows that we’re here.”
Summer said that despite coming from the Central Coast, they have taken part at all levels of Interschools for a number of years and continue to enjoy the experience.
“We’ve come for the past few years, since 2019 and now we’ve got friends from everywhere.”
Image courtesy of IB Images.
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