Australian bonanza at Freestyle and Snowboard World Championships

February 9th, 2011


World Champion Anna Segal and bronze medalist Russ Henshaw. Image:: teambuller.com

Don St Pierre

Australia racked up an unprecedented four gold medals and one bronze at this year’s FIS World Championships.

27-year-old Holly Crawford and 21-year-old Nate Johnstone both took gold in the snowboard half pipe last month in Spain. In addition 23-year-old Alex Pullin took gold in snowboard cross. These results alone would have made the 2011 FIS World Championships Australia’s best ever performance, but it was only the beginning.

At the freestyle skiing World Championships held in Park City in early February, Australia’s 25-year-old slopestyle skier Anna Segal took the gold while 21-year-old Russ Henshaw took bronze, also in slopestyle.

While the halfpipe results leave plenty of reasons for Aussies to be optimistic about the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi, Russia let’s bare in mind many of the snowboard halfpipe stars chose to give the FIS World Championships a miss, saving themselves for other more lucrative events such as X Games. For example in the men’s all three 2010 Winter Olympic men’s medalists – USA’s Shaun White, Finland’s Peetu Piiroinen and Scott Lago of USA – were not at the FIS World Championships. It was the same in the women’s with all three Vancouver medalists, Torah Bright (Aus), Hannah Teeter (USA) and Kelly Clark (USA), giving the FIS world champs a miss.

But with that said these Aussie results are stand out performances and will go a long way to instill the kind of confidence it takes to consistently win at this level.


Anna Segal on the podium as the World Champion. Image:: Park City

However, Pullin’s win in the snowboard cross was against the best in the world and is a big step to erasing the disappointment of the Vancouver Olympics where he qualified first for the finals, but crashed out in the early rounds.

The slopestyle and halfpipe fields at the FIS Freestyle World Champs, both men’s and women’s, also featured the world’s best. Anna Segal (Mt Buller) beat both the 2011 X Games gold and silver medalists – Kaya Turski (Can) and Keri Herman (US). For Anna, who won the inaugural X Games slopestyle in 2009, it was welcome return to form after a broken leg in August 2010 and confirmed her position at the top of the sport.

For Russ Henshaw the World Championship bronze came a week after his silver at the X Games. After qualifying first at both of these events the Jindbabyne local was favourite going into the finals, but the gold medal has proved elusive. The men’s slopestyle at Park City attracted the biggest names in the sport and the spread between first and third at the World Champs was only .6 of a point. With X Games big air Gold medalist Alex Schlopy (USA) first ahead of Sammy Carlson (USA) who won gold in the X Games slopestyle.

Henshaw is now firmly established as one of freeskiing’s international stars with another stellar segment in Matchstick Film’s latest release The Way I See It complementing the competitive success he has enjoyed over the past two years.


Russ Henshaw, World Championship bronze medalist. Image:: Park City

For our slopestyle athletes this World Championships represents a critical step towards IOC’s ruling on slopestyle’s inclusion in the 2014 Winter Olympics. No doubt the success Segal and Henshaw enjoyed at the World Championships will inspire more kids to venture into the terrain park and that inspiration will be boosted further if the IOC introduces slopestyle and halfpipe skiing to the Olympics for 2014.

The IOC is looking to appeal to the youth market less engaged with the more traditional winter sports and Australia should be there poised to seize the moment with these exciting new events. It will be interesting to see how the Australian resorts, ski schools and the traditional administrative bodies respond.

If our freeskiers and world champion snowboarders can emulate Torah Bright’s success at the Olympics it is not only great for them, but will be huge boost for the Australian snow industry.

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