Sabra Lane: The Winter Olympics are two months away. They’re in Italy and because of our limited winter season, many Aussie athletes spend much of their time overseas. Reporter Floss Adams has been tracking their progress with some hopeful of a podium finish.
Floss Adams: It’s that time of the year when many Australians start flocking to the beach or preparing for their summer holidays. But that’s not the case for snowboarder Tess Caody, who travels the world in the pursuit of an endless winter.
Tess Coady: Probably haven’t had a full summer since I was like 13, which is kind of crazy.
Floss Adams: The Olympic bronze medalist knows what is needed for athletic greatness, and she’s trying to achieve it again at the next Winter Games in Italy in February. But Australia is a country more known for hot weather than its snowy mountains. And these athletes often face more barriers than their European and North American counterparts.
Tess Coady: You know, they grow up in these towns that are like five minutes from the hill that they went and rode out and stuff. And then I definitely spend like a lot of time on the road, easily 10 months of the year.
Floss Adams: The athletes are overseas now for the final Olympic qualification competitions. But during the Aussie winter, many base themselves in Jindabyne in New South Wales’ snowy mountains. A $12 million National Sports Training Centre there is helping them stay and train on home soil for longer.
Tess Coady: The just level of progression has really gone crazy, and especially when I was like, there’s some young kids around who are trying these crazy tricks, which is so sick.
Floss Adams: For Olympic hopeful professional skier and Sydney local Daisy Thomas, the training centre is close enough to home life.
Daisy Thomas: We get basically an extra three months being able to stay in our own country and train.
Floss Adams: A performance airbag jump was also set up in 2021 for off snow training. It’s 17 metres tall, designed to train advanced tricks.
Daisy Thomas: We’ve seen a lot of a lot of the Aussies do a lot better since we’ve had the airbag, because we can just have a bit of an advantage over the rest of the world, but also we can just train all year round.
Floss Adams: But even the best laid preparation doesn’t always go to plan. Daisy Thomas suffered a knee injury while competing in China last week and is currently being assessed by her medical team. Back in Australia, around 100 athletes of all levels train at the centre. Strength and conditioning lead Janina Strouts says it’s helping give access to international competitions for the next generation.
Janina Strauts: So that by the time they get to a stage where they’re an elite performer, they’ve already got a great capacity and base of physicality. That was great.
Floss Adams: According to snowboarding coach Ollie Midgley, that next generation of athletes is determined and ready.
Ollie Midgley: It’s amazing the level of talent that we have here. They’re punching above their weight for sure.
Floss Adams: And snowboarder Tess Coady wants our summer nation to have more eyes on winter sports.
Tess Coady: It’s be cool to have a bit more of those other sports that are different and exciting and just sort of showing what other people are doing and having that a bit more diversity, I think, and that would be cool.
Sabra Lane: Snowboarder Tess Coady there, ending that report by Floss Adams.
