Sport: Snowboard Cross DOB: 25/01/2003 Place of Birth Cooma, NSW Place of Residence: Jindabyne, NSW OWIA Athlete Performance Contract Commenced: 2021 Institute/Academy: NSWIS
Personal Best Results:
Olympic Winter Games - 18th, Beijing, CHN, 2022
World Cup - 1st, Les Deux Alpes, FRA, 2022
Note: current as @ 04/12/22
Olympic Winter Games Attended
2022 - Beijing, China
BIOGRAPHY
Josie Baff is a born-and-bred Jindabyne snowboarder that is following a long family lineage of proficient snowboarders and skiers.
Her Father, Mother and siblings have spent their life in the Australian snow fields and are considered part of the furniture in the winter hamlet.
Baff began skiing when she was two years old and learnt how to snowboard at five years old.
“Dad was a ski instructor and Mum and he were doing back-to-back seasons from Jindabyne to Saint Moritz and because they loved it so much, we were destined to follow in their footsteps” remembers Baff.
Her father ran snowboard camps and the family would go to Mammoth. Being a snowboarding camp, Josie decided she wanted to try it because she saw all the other kids doing it. In 2015 Baff began to take it more seriously as she started to secure good results.
2019 saw Baff on the podium at the Canadian Junior Nationals (first), Australian New Zealand Cup (second) and NorAm (third).
Baff had a breakthrough performance at the 2020 Youth Olympic Games in Switzerland, claiming the gold medal in the snowboard cross event. The victory was Australia's first ever at the Youth Olympic Winter Games. Baff also secured her first ever Europa Cup medal, taking bronze in the french resort of Puy St. Vincent.
Also in 2020, Baff was a successful recipient of a Tier 1 Scholarship within the Sport Australia Hall of Fame Scholarship & Mentoring Program and paired with SAHOF Legend and one of Australia’s most successful swimmers, Susie O’Neill as her Mentor.
In 2021, Baff made her World Cup debut at eighteen years of age in Bakuriani, Georgia, successfully qualifying for head to head finals racing in 15th place.
In her first World Cup event of the 2021-2022 season in Montafon, Austria, Baff qualified for finals in an impressive second place performance, finishing the event in a personal best result of ninth.
In January at the World Cup in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, Baff recorded her second top-10 of the season, matching her personal best with another ninth place finish.
Baff was selected to her first Australian Olympic Team at the 2022 Beijing Games, finishing in 18th place. She also partnered up with Adam Lambert in the mixed snowboard cross team event, finishing in 13th.
Baff made an incredible start to the 2022-2023 World Cup season, winning gold in the opening snowboard cross event in Les Deux Alpes, France.
The podium performance is also the first of the 19-year-old teenagers’ career in just her eighth World Cup start, becoming just the second Australian female snowboard cross rider to win a World Cup event.