Moguls skiers judged by the best at Interschools

Emma Chapman-Davis carved out a successful Moguls career, performing strongly in Australia and around the world. It all came off the back of a promising junior career, where one of her annual highlights was competing at Interschools.

In retirement, Emma took a couple of years away from the sport she loves until it drew her back in - as it does for so many - with an opportunity to judge at Interschools, an opportunity which has continued to open doors for her in officiating.

“I took a good long break after retiring from the sport and being an athlete myself, and then the opportunity came up to be able to step in and start judging Interschools again and over the last two years I’ve been able to do that more consistently across other mogul events that we have as well,” said Emma. “For me, I’ve always loved moguls skiing so it’s a really good way to stay involved in the community, be part of the competition, be able to celebrate the wins and the development of our athletes without having to actually compete myself.”

That community is one which has gone from small beginnings to a big family, with Australian moguls riding the crest of a wave back by nearly two decades of success on the international scene. Emma has both ridden that wave and chosen to stay a part of it, and as the Head Judge for Interschools Division 1 today, has seen it first hand.

“When I first started, you could count on one hand the number of families that were involved in moguls skiing in Australia and to see how much it’s grown since then is just phenomenal,” she says. “The depth of talent we have now across a whole range of ages is really impressive.

“I think there was some quality skiing from all the athletes today across the boys and the girls. There was some adversity, but everybody needs a bit of that. If you’re a moguls skier there’ll always be something weird coming up.”

Emma would certainly forgive everyone of today’s competitors for not giving much thought to how a competition is even staged, right down to those who put their hands up to sit in the judges chair and potentially wear the wrath of athletes and supporters.

“I have to admit, I never really gave much of a thought about judges beyond maybe ‘ooh, I was very happy with that score’ or ‘aww, I’ve been possibly scored low’, which is very funny now reflecting on coming back as a judge and also seeing how much goes on behind the scenes,” she says. “Not just the judges - all the volunteers, all the course officials, all the other people involved who just make an event happen - I never had any real inkling about that as competitor.”

Joining Emma today in the booth were World Cup medallist and Olympian Cooper Woods and up-and-comer Lucy Pernice. Emma said, “I think it speaks about the community that does exist around moguls skiing [athletes judging junior competitions], to stay involved and be very happy, enjoy being able to give up their time for an event is always lovely.

“I think it’s a really good opportunity to keep using the skills that they have developed as well.

“For the athletes coming through and being judged, knowing that they have an ex-athlete know technically what they’re looking for, who can appreciate if there’s something odd with the course, how that might then impact the skiing that we’ll see on the day from a judges perspective, I think that’s just such an invaluable insight and can really lend itself well to what can otherwise be a very subjective score.

“There are times you might doubt yourself and it always comes back to ‘what are you looking for, what was the carving, what was the absorption, what was the level of aggression’; so it’s really nice to have a good community in the judging cohort to talk through and really be as honest, confident and objective as we can be.”

When asked about the key from going to volunteer judge to someone who’s capable of sitting as head of a judging crew at events, she believes that those that welcomed her into the ranks gave her the confidence to back her knowledge and judgment at a time when it would be easy to second guess yourself.

“I think I was lucky I had some very solid judges around me who were able to support me to find my consistency and be able to really support my workings,” she says. “They gave the confidence that what I was looking at, what I was judging, where we were judging to and where our scores were landing, were was confident as possible.”