TBR Olympic Wrap

21-03-2010
Andrew Pattison

Australia has completed their most successful Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, with a record three medals and a much improved overall standard of performance.

In addition to the success on the sporting field, the Vancouver Games can be positively viewed in a number of other areas, such as the most comprehensive media coverage of a Winter Olympics Australia has ever seen thanks to Channel Nine, Foxtel and print/online media.

Vancouver sure is a beautiful place (when it’s not raining!) with spectacular lakes, mountains and wildlife, ensuring the pictures sent around the world complimenting the exploits of the athletes.

In the lead-up to the Games, there was justifiable concern in the poor snow conditions at Cypress Mountain, site of the Freestyle and Snowboard events. What better way to deal with challenging snow than to have former Team Buller legend Stuart “Stowie” Aldred as the manager for the Cypress Venue. Stowie oversaw the transformation of the venues from no snow on Australia day, to an acceptable field of play for Olympic competition in under two weeks. This was an enormous task involving hundreds of trucks filled with snow, helicopters and man hours on the shovel!

The Australian team size for Vancouver was 40 strong, with equal gender representation which was great to see as the team has always been male dominant. The Australian team included the two youngest Olympians at the Games, Mogul skier Britteny Cox and Snowboarder Scotty James, which received large media interest both in Australian and internationally. Those at TBR would know Britteny Cox quite well, having trained alongside her at the TBR: Park City Camp the past two years and at the TBR: Water Jump activities. Both athletes showed they can be competitive with the words best, placing in the low 20’s, handling the added Olympic pressure with a level of maturity beyond their years.

In contrast to the two 15-year-old athletes, Team Buller’s Jacqui Cooper was the veteran of the team competing in her fifth Olympic Winter Games at 37 years-of-age. Making it to five Olympics is an amazing achievement, and is testament to Jacqui’s durability as an athlete and her ability to rehabilitate from major injury.

Dale Begg-Smith was very unlucky not to become the first Freestyle athlete in history to win back to back gold medals, narrowly finishing second to Canadian Alexander Bilodeau. For Dale to perform at the level he did in Vancouver was a remarkable achievement, considering 12-months earlier he was on the surgeons table undertaking an ACL reconstruction on his knee.

The action in the Snowboard Halfpipe was spectacular, with Shaun White dominating the men’s field to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals. Torah Bright overcame the pressure of falling in her first run in the finals to win Australia’s first ever Snowboard Gold medal with her extremely progressive run which included the most technical and difficult tricks.

One of the most exciting sports at the Games was the Ski and Snowboard Cross events, with TV audiences all over the world loving the action of having four people on the one course battling it out. Mt Buller athletes Alex ”Chumpy” Pullin and Katya Crema showed plenty of talent and will be strong medal chances for 2014.
In the Aerials event, Australia battled the might of China, and emerged victorious, with Team Buller’s Lydia Lassila winning gold and Jacqui Cooper finishing fifth. Both Lydia and Jacqui all learnt to ski in the TBR program and we are very proud of their achievements, continuing Team Buller and Australia’s legacy of being the best in the world.

To finish things off, Team Canada took home the Hockey Gold on the final day of the games defeating the USA in overtime. To give you an idea as to how popular Hockey is in Canada, imagine the level of fanaticism of AFL in Melbourne, multiplied by ten! The streets were crazy, with everyone in their Team Canada jerseys and they partied on the streets all night following each Team Canada game.
As we head towards the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia, it will be a huge challenge for Australia to expand on the three medals won in Vancouver. Hopefully Begg-Smth, Bright and Lassila continue in the sport and the younger athletes from Vancouver can learn from their experience and aim for the podium.

And who knows, maybe some TBR members not even in their teens could be the next Britteny Cox and be the youngest athlete in 2014.

Dare to dream!