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World champions share snowsports top honour

29/4/2011

Following unprecedented winter sports success during the northern hemisphere season, Ski and Snowboard Australia have named its four new World Champions as joint winners of the Suzuki Snowsports Athlete of the Year.

At a gala function in Melbourne on Thursday, snowboarders Alex 'Chumpy' Pullin (snowboard cross), Holly Crawford (halfpipe), Nate Johnstone (halfpipe) and freestyle skier, Anna Segal (slopestyle), were named as the sport's premier athletes for season 2010/11.

Alex Pullin had a triumphant year, winning the World Cup snowboard cross title as well as the World Championship.

Nate Johnstone arrived in the big time in 2011 after an injury-troubled 2010, emerging as a real star of the halfpipe world, winning the freestyle snowboard overall World Cup title, the halfpipe World Cup and the World Championship.

Holly Crawford, a two-time Olympian, narrowly missed out on the season long World Cup title, finishing the season ranked second, but she was part of the magic in Spain at the Snowboard World Championship in January where Australia won three titles in 36 hours and finished the event on top of the Nations' gold medal tally.

With slopestyle looming as a possible inclusion on the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games program, the world's best slopestyle athletes were out in force at the 2011 FIS Freestyle World Championships.

Segal, who started her skiing career as a moguls skier, produced a superb run to win Australia's fourth World Championship for the year.

Recent past winners of the Snowsports Athlete of the Year award include Olympic gold medalists Torah Bright and Lydia Lassila, who shared the honour last year, two-time Olympic medalist Dale Begg-Smith and aerials great Jacqui Cooper.

With Cooper retired, and Lassila, Bright and Begg-Smith all sitting out the season following the Olympics, the emergence of four new stars was a huge bonus for snowsports.

Ski and Snowboard Australia CEO, Michael Kennedy, said the exceptional season had made it impossible for the judges to separate the top honour.

"Really, each won a world championship, and that was the key goal for everyone during the year," Kennedy said. "It is the highest achievement outside of the Olympic Games that an athlete can strive for in winter sport.

"It is an extraordinary year, and we thought each deserved the honour of being recognised with the sport's top award."

Athlete of the Year: Alex Pullin, Nate Johnstone, Holly Crawford, Anna Segal
Alpine - Scott Kneller
Cross Country - Esther Bottomley
Freestyle - Anna Segal
Snowboard - Alex Pullin, Nate Johnstone, Holly Crawford

Junior Athlete of the Year: Britteny Cox
Alpine - Luke Laidlaw
Cross Country - Phillip Bellingham
Freestyle - Britteny Cox
Snowboard - Scott James
Coach of the Year - Ben Alexander, Ben Wordsworth

Dev. Coach of the Year - Peter Topalovic
Outstanding Achievement - Russ Henshaw
Rising Star - Greta Small

Warm welcome home for winter champs

6/4/2011

Australia's snowboard world champions, Alex "Chumpy" Pullin, Holly Crawford and Nathan Johnstone, were given a heroes' welcome home today to celebrate their record breaking achievements during the northern hemisphere's winter.

The trio was greeted by Olympic Winter Institute of Australia Chairman Mr Geoff Henke, other members of the OWI Board, officials, coaches and the media at a special function at The Icehouse in Melbourne's Docklands precinct.

Winter Olympic Games gold medalist, Steven Bradbury, hosted the function. The legendary speed skater recounted a year that was not only celebrated as the first season to boast three current world champions but also saw Pullin and Johnstone finish the season as World Cup winners in boardercross and halfpipe respectively.

Crawford came agonisingly close to making the World Cup successes a three-way reason to celebrate, with her end of season points tally leaving her a close second in the women's halfpipe World Cup.

OWI Chief Executive Geoff Lipshut said the function was a fitting tribute to the unprecedented success achieved by the three Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holders.

"The achievements by Chumpy, Holly and Nate have been outstanding, results that are better than we could have dreamed of," Lipshut said.

"There is no doubt that their successes will provide great motivation to the younger athletes in their sport where Australians show a real affinity.

"I think that we will see many young boarders during Australia's next few winters all wanting to follow in the footsteps of these great athletes."

Henke told the gathering that the successes were clear proof that the OWI programs, supported by the AIS, NSWIS and VIS are paying handsome dividends.

He said that before the inception of the Institute programs in 1994 that Australia's medal tally in international alpine sports was 37 in total - 12 gold, 9 silver and 16 bronze.

The current tally is 267 medals - 116 gold, 77 silver and 74 bronze.

"We are thrilled by the amazing results achieved by Alex, Holly and Nathan and in particular we believe the program will continue to provide the perfect preparation for the next Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, in 2014." Henke said.

No luck for Aussie men in Snowboard Cross

6/4/2011

Two time World Champion Alex Chumpy Pullin and world number two ranked Jarryd Hughes failed to fire in the rainy conditions at Extreme Park on Day 11 of the Sochi Olympic Winter Games. Both were bundled out of their respective quarter-finals as Cam Bolton progressed in style to the semi-finals before his luck ran out and he was taken down while in a qualifying position for the medal race.

Bolton ended up with a bloody nose a suspected broken wrist and an Olympic opportunity ruined. He toughed it out and patched himself back up for the Small Final but it was not his day and he fell again near the top of the course and could not finish. He was battered bruised and 11th on his Olympic debut.

“A little bit worse for wear, but it’s OK, it’s part of it. I went as hard as I could out there and this is how my day ended but that’s what the day had in store for me,” Bolton said.

“First heat I got out in front and got passed and passed back so went through in first and the second heat I had to make a few passes in one turn, but got most of the work done in that one turn – turn four – before the step down. It was going good and I managed to get through that. In the semi-final I was up there and got tangled in a turn and went off a drop and then got hit by someone else.

“Then in the small final, I think my wrist is broken, I’m not one hundred per cent sure but I got it strapped up and got straight up there and then crashed again.

Bolton hit his head and winded himself in the Small Final.

“I couldn’t breathe for a little bit there and I think I winded myself and I was in a little bit of pain.

Pullin watching on from the bottom of the hill with his day over he was disappointed to see his teammate’s run come to and end.

“God it’s hard watching my teammate (Bolton) crash like that,” Pullin told the media in Russia.

Pullin, the Australian Team Flagbearer, won the first 1/8 race of the day comfortably as did Bolton in his first race. Hughes was third in heat five to progress comfortably to the quarter-finals before the day went wrong for the Australians.

Pullin, was last at the start of his quarter-final and although he made up ground to be third mid-course he was overtaken when he lost speed with a mistake off a jump and could not recover. He was fourth and did not progress. His final placing was equal eleventh which is six places ahead of his 2010 but it was far from the placing he had worked so hard for.

“Really the only way to explain it is, it’s been a two-day long battle of conditions and waiting and anxious nerves and all sorts of stuff. All the normal emotions,” Pullin said.

“It’s a tough battle out there. They’ve done everything they can to maintain the course through some of the worst conditions you could possibly be to race. But the fact is, this is always a possibility and I kind of came here expecting that, cause we raced in similar conditions last year.

“When we came up here this morning, I did two training runs with a bunch of different riders and the feeling in the course was totally different to what our training days were.

“We had different speeds, the features – some had shrunk, some have stayed the same, it was pretty tricky to gauge what the day was going to bring and each run was slightly different. Sometimes the course got quicker and slower. It sort of threw the doors wide open.

“We’re not a sport where you sit in a lane and you put down your routine and you win the race, that’s not it. There are tightly bunched packs as well as the conditions.

“Anyway, I feel like I’ve done absolutely everything I could. I feel all of us have on the Aussie team.

“We knew it was going to be more like a fight rather than a perfect race with clean turns.

“The first run I got away and it went perfectly to plan.

World champions share snowsports top honour

Warm welcome home for winter champs

No luck for Aussie men in Snowboard Cross

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