Olympic Winter Institute Australia CEO Geoff Lipshut shares his thoughts on Vancouver, the competition venues, Australia's hopefuls and the 'new school' of winter sports.

Geoff Lipshut is a busy man. As CEO of the Olympic Winter Institute Australia (OWIA) he steers the OWIA in its mission to provide funding, programming and coaching to Australia's elite winter sports athletes. February 2010 represents the pinnacle of a four year preparation cycle and this last stretch is a "hugely different workload" he says.

But Lipshut is no stranger to hard work, the one time competitive freestyle skier has been working hard to further the cause of winter sports in Australia since driving the formation of what is now known as Team Buller, home to Australia's Cup winning aerialists, in the early 1980s.

As a self confessed poor "competition skier" though not that poor, he came in second place in the 1984 Australian Moguls Championships, after a forth the year before in the Aerials Lipshut was inspired to become a coach himself then, when realising he "wasn't the best coach either," he channeled his energies into finding and nurturing those athletes and coaches who could go all the way.

From Team Buller to CEO of the OWIA, his fundamental aim has continued. On the cusp of the Olympic year he shares some of his own views on the Games ahead.

1. You've been heading up winter sports in Australia for the past several Olympics, how are the competition venues looking for Vancouver?

The competition venues in Vancouver are excellent, they're all ready and they're all excellent venues. The only issue might be the weather, Vancouver is a very coastal city, so that can blow in some wet weather and some foggy weather. Given that the weather's kind, they're fantastic venues.

At Cyprus , the closest to Vancouver city, where the freestyle skiing and snowboarding is being held, you might get some fog and rain there and it could be wet, but that's really the only potential issue, all the venues are outstanding.

Moguls at Cypress Mountain. Image vancouver2010.com

2. How have the athlete preparations being going for Vancouver?

We've had our ups and downs, you always do. I think it's very true that we've got some fantastic Australian athletes but we've got a relatively small number in each sport so we can't afford to have any injuries. There's a lot of athletes that are yet to qualify and while our main athletes pretty much have qualified, they've got to get to the Games yet and with us, injury is our real danger, given we're lucky with injury then everyone is on track. Torah Bright, Dale Begg-Smith, and Jacqui Cooper, they're all top line athletes and have all been number one in the world or World Champion but they're all coming back from injury. Torah has already come back very strong from her shoulder reconstruction, Jacqui had a hip injury and she's come back strong. Dale had a knee reconstruction last year and he's come back so far so good as well, so as long as that trend keeps going we should be ok.

3. How many Australian athletes do you anticipate will be competing in Vancouver?

I think we'll have, just a guess of mine, somewhere between 32 and 36 athletes in Vancouver. I think you'd probably have 50 people trying for those spots.

Medal hopeful Dale Begg Smith. Image - Mike Ridewood

4. In what events do you feel will be our best hope for medals?

Events with multiple medal chances are aerials, half pipe and then snowboard cross. In aerials you've got Jacqui Cooper and Lydia Lassila, those are our two main chances, then there's Bree Munro and Liz Gardner backing them up. So in aerials there's more than one chance. Then we've got half pipe; Holly, Torah and Nathan. Then in boarder cross you've got Alex Pullin, Damon and Stephaine Hinky, but Steph hasn't had that many World Cup starts and hasn't had that many medals at World Cup level yet whereas Damon and Chumpy (Pullin) both have.

Jacqui Cooper. Image - Mike Ridewood

Then you've got of course Dale Begg-Smith in moguls; given he gets back to full fitness. I think you've got to put an asterisk next to Dale, if he's healthy and strong he's a hell of an athlete but unfortunately moguls is a very demanding sport physically and we just don't know yet how he'll be, fitness wise.

And you've got Tatiana in short track speed skating. Tatiana I think has a chance as well. She has to compete with the Koreans, the Chinese, the Americans and the Canadians and when they've all got three girls in the race and we've only got one, it makes it harder for her. But she's a tremendous athlete, a hard worker and has a great attitude, so I think she'll give it her best shot.

And then you've got the women's skeleton team, which is very exciting as well. Two of the girls are ranking in the top ten week in week out. Emma Lincolin-Smith was fifth in the World Championships, Michelle Steele has had a World Cup medal, so I think they're real chances and again, they're great athletes. Melissa Hoar is also there, she was World Junior Skeleton Champion four years ago. She's just come back from injury after three years and she's going great guns as well. So lets watch that space.

Then there's Jo Shaw. Jo's a snowboard parallel giant slalom racer, she finished forth at the first parallel slalom of the season. She tweaked her hamstring so she's been a bit slow to get going again but she's improving every year.

Those are our best medal chances I'd say and overall I think there's some really, really good things happening.

5. Australian women's Freestyle aerials and Snowboard half pipe teams have an impressive line up, to what do you attribute this success with the women and do we have any men coming up through the programs?

The fours girls that have won a lot of medals, Holly, Torah, Jacqui and Lydia, they're all outstanding, unique individuals. All completely different people but all tremendous athletes. Lydia and Jacqui, they're in a very tough sport in aerials in terms of physical and acrobatic demands; they just work harder than other people and they are completely accountable for their own performance. They will take their own risks, they will pay the price in injury and they will make their own success. They just literally work harder than other people. And they've come from watching Kirstie Mashall do it first, then Jacqui, then Alisa Camplin.

Torah is just an absolutely unique individual in terms of the skills that she has. She's revolutionised the sport and brought a lot of switch backside technical skills, which a lot of the other girls were not doing; she was the first to do a lot of that. And the way she's been able to manage a professional snowboard career and being one of the best athletes in the world is an absolute credit to her. She's managed to fit a lot of other things into her career besides just training and competing.

Holly's pretty unique because she goes really big. Holly takes a lot of risks, she's happy to manage that risk and I think she's really improved a lot. Actually, out of the four, Holly's made enormous improvement.

Jacqui and Lydia have been up there for a while, Jacqui's been number one or thereabouts for ten years, Lydia's been there for five or six years, Torah for probably the last four or five years. Holly's the one who's really moved up and managed herself as an athlete and she's learning a lot of skills.

I think those four girls are just very impressive people, very impressive athletes. When you look at some of the skeleton girls, they're impressive too.

The other medal chance is Jenny Owens in the ski cross. Jenny's a real chance in the ski cross. She probably hasn't had the volume of placings the other girls have had. Jenny was our second highest ranked alpine skier ever after Zali Steggell, she was top 50 in the world in Alpine and she's a real chance.

As for the men, David Morris might be the first male aerialist to qualify for Australia since 1998. Dave's not going badly. He's just sitting outside the qualification for Olympics at the moment but he's improving all the time.

And of course you've got Nathan Johnstone. He is probably one of the most improved male snowboarders in the world. He's a fantastic half pipe rider. Given we don't have a 22 foot pipe in this country, Nathan's been able to adjust to competing against the top guys and I think he'll make big improvements this year. Maybe 2010 is a few years too early for Nathan because I think he has a bit more to learn, just because the level of the guys has come on so much. Shaun White, he's absolutely one of winter sport's greatest ever superstars and he is revolutionising the sport every four years. I think it's consciously planned on his part too¾he's probably one of the best competitors in any sport I've ever seen. So Nathan's competing with that caliber of athlete and I think Shaun's lifting the whole sport, but I think Nathan's one of the few who's keeping up with that.

Nathan Johnstone. Image - Tyler Heffernan

6. Australian Dale Begg-Smith is the current gold medal holder for men's moguls. No athlete has been able to win back to back medals in the sport of moguls, how do you see his chances?

With Dale it's about injury, it's about how he's going. Dale hasn't had a great year coming back from injury so I think the jury's out and let's just wait and see

7. There are two men slated for Alpine racing and no women, why do you think there are currently no women from Australia in contention for Vancouver?

Jenny Owens and Katya Crema were Australia's top ranked alpine athletes and they're now competing in ski cross and Jenny has retired from alpine. Maybe Katya would be going to the Olympics for alpine, she was Australia's best ranked female alpine skier going back a few years but to be a World Cup ski racer you have to be a fantastic skier, you have to be a remarkable ski racer. Whilst you can ski to a certain level at development level, maybe at Intercontinental Cup level, to be able to qualify and ski World Cup week in week out, not many people in the world are able to do that, so our male alpine athletes Jono and Craig are head and shoulders above everybody else. Ever since Zali Steggall retired and Jenny retired from alpine shortly after there just hasn't been any women at that level.

8. Vancouver marks the first time Ski cross will be an official Olympic event. What do you think of this and what other 'new school events do see being included at 2014 in Sochi, Russia?

I think ski cross is a tremendous sport, I think it's great, I think ski cross would be great as an alpine sport as well. It's all alpine athletes, it's a new school alpine event, an option for alpine ski racers and ski racing coaches. I think it's an unbelievable opportunity. Especially for Australia where alpine is difficult, it's expensive and courses are hard to put together. I think ski cross is not completely about alpine skills but it's mainly about alpine skills. A top athlete who's physically durable, who's aggressive, they can be successful in ski cross but eventually it will be the very good alpine ski racers who are best in ski cross, they're just tremendous skiers and very good ski racers become unbelievable ski cross skiers as well.

New school events for Sochi; you'll see skier pipe ¾ skis in half pipe ¾ and I think that will be a tremendous event. I think once that's unleashed and guys start to take it seriously, and girls, I think you'll see some tremendous tricks in the half pipe, you'll see spins that some people have never even thought of. The level of control and height that the skiers should be able to gain riding the pipe will be really impressive. It will be a really spectacular event.

I think it makes a lot of sense, you're using the same apparatus at as the snowboard half pipe¾so if you put skier pipe into that mix you'll just run one after the other. I think it will be a great addition.

Jenny Owens. Image - courtesy Jenny Owens

9. The new school events seem to open up opportunities for Australians, where we find it hard to crack into the more established events with long held traditions in Europe and North America. Do you think this is so?

Absolutely. We are early adopters and in the newer sports there are smaller numbers. Smaller numbers mean if we have one or two people doing it well we're equal to other countries, which is what happened with aerials. Aerials is our most successful sport. We've had someone ranked top three in the world for 19 of the last 20 years and that's not just one person, that's several people. Because we're able to succeed with small numbers, we're able to do things our own way.

We're talking with Perisher at the moment about getting a 22 foot pipe. If we do manage to get that, the opportunities for skier pipe for Sochi and beyond and for half pipe will be much greater and you'll have lots of young kids giving it a try. And given you only need one pipe to be really successful we can hold our own. You know, in sports with smaller facilities and smaller numbers there's definitely more opportunities for us. Where you need the bigger facilities like a bobsled track or a Nordic ski jump, those facilities are just too difficult for us.

I think you're 100 per cent right, I think the newer sports with limited fields, smaller facilities, that really suits us well.

To read about the sports featured in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics click HERE

For Australian and New Zealand athlete profiles click HERE

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