PROFILE Craig Branch – Aussie Olympian
Image | Courtesy Craig Branch
Words | Tess Cook
The problem with ski racing; it doesn’t leave nearly enough time for surfing, especially in winter, when the swells are better.
Aussie alpine ski racer Craig ‘Bud’ Branch finds far too much of his time from June to October is taken up by the skiing caper. Not to mention the winter he must endure in the North while back in Cronulla, his Australian home, swells are breaking under a sweltering summer sun.
But then, that is the price paid for being one of Australia’s most successful – and longest serving – World Cup ski racers and it’s some consolation that for the past few months, since returning from the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games via a World Cup in Norway and an Alaskan heli ski trip, Bud’s surfed, oh, three times a day. “I reckon I surf about as much, averaged out, as any other guy who surfs,” he says.
Trying out big mountain skiing in Alaska | Harro
Taking the super G turns to the big mountains | Harro
He must stockpile those waves because come the fist good snowfall he’ll be back in Jindabyne preparing for another year on the World Cup Alpine Tour. “I’ve definitely had thoughts of retiring,” he admits. “But then I realise how good it is and how much fun it is. You’re pretty lucky if you can do something you love and keep doing it. I never thought, when I was young, I’d be one of the last ones standing. When I was 18 I just wanted to go to the Salt Lake City Olympics, then I thought I’d be over it.”
But the love is still there, and the Olympic Winter Institute (OWI) has given the green light to the funding that he needs to train and race in Europe, where he will be the sole Aussie racer on the World Cup tour.
In the past he and fellow World Cup racer Jono Brauer trained and traveled with the British Ski Team, a more effective arrangement for the OWI than setting the two guys up with their own retinue of equipment, coaches and technicians. This year Bud is looking to slot into the USA Ski Team, where older brother Mick is a coach.
The Budding ski racer
The Branch Family indulged their love of skiing with an apartment in Jindabyne, bought in 1981 and Bud grew up skiing Perisher. “I followed my older brother and sister into the Perisher Smiggins race club at nine,” he says. “I started racing and started doing really well, that’s how it started, wanting to do what my older siblings were doing and mum and dad giving us the opportunity,” he says.
Distinguishing himself as a prodigal talent, he was soon being invited to spend his summers in the Northern winter, training with a crop of young Aussie skiers that included AJ Bear, Brad Wall and fellow 2010 Olympians Jono Brauer and Jenny Owens. “We all came through at the same time, which was kind of lucky,” he remembers, “we all used to travel together and train together and move as a group overseas.” Since Jono’s post 2010 Olympic retirement he and Jenny are the last left standing and even she has moved from alpine to the newest FIS discipline, ski cross.
Bud only races the speed disciplines, downhill and super G, how did he discover his penchant for going 100km plus on skis? “When I was 15 our coach at the time decided to throw us in some downhills in Europe. I did my first race one day, then the next day I was warming up and flew off the run, hit a tree and snapped my leg in half, so that was the end of that year,” he says.
“The next year I went back and skied a few more downhills. At the end of the season I had a phone call from one of the FIS point coordinators telling me I was ranked second in the world for downhill for my age, so I guess that’s when it became apparent that I should keep skiing – And that I like going fast.”
The World Cup Tour life
For a couple of Aussies stretching every penny to see them through the season, the World Cup Tour is a series of shared hotel rooms – and beds – with dubious breakfasts in rickety pensions and, until this year when they scraped together enough for their own rattly old van, riding in the cramped confines of the British Ski Team bus.
Bud in Alaska | Harro
It’s a stark contrast to the grand progress of Bode Miller, the American ski super-star who travels about Europe with a retinue of two caravans, that’s one for him and one for his ski technicians, piloted by assistants in identical black utes, while he enjoys the chicanes in his Audi.
But there is camaraderie amongst the skiers on the tour, whatever the state of their lodgings. Bud counts the big names in skiing as friends and there is particular kindness for the Aussies, Bud says.
“People aren’t used to seeing an Aussie on the World Cup Circuit. It’s awesome, everyone loves Australia, I’ve never heard anyone say a bad thing about it,” he says.
“There’s a lot of support – sometimes they think you’re a complete hack and they should support you, then they realise you actually can ski!”
Lovin’ Alaska | Harro
And he sure can. “I’ve skied every World Cup course, and I’ve done all of them a few times,” Bud says of a career spanning more than a decade. “You’ll go back, and each year the courses are set pretty much the same as the year before. So when you inspect the course, you know exactly what’s coming and you remember how you skied different sections of the course. All that experience comes into play, the only thing that changes is the snow conditions.”
It’s that continuity that makes skiing a sport for the experienced, often more than for the young, as long as your body holds together. Bud is lucky, he says, injury hasn’t forced him out yet and he feels he’s skiing as well as he ever has.
The Ski Racing Game
At such speed – up to 130km/per hour in downhill – a skier must have incredible reaction and focus. “It can be pretty much is aaaaahhhh in your mind when you’re skiing Kitz,” Bud admits of the Tour’s most famous and difficult race, the Hahnenkamm Downhill in Kitzbuhel, Austria. “The worst is you know what you’re in for. The first and last 30 seconds are the most intense thing you’ll ever do.
“You just have to trick yourself to go even faster, it’s when you pull back that you’re in trouble. Sometimes you’re surprised you make it,” he says.
Bud and Jono Brauer in Alaska | Harro
But no successful ski racer go to where they are by pointing and hoping, there is a lot of skill in maintaining focus and following a plan through a high speed race. “Throughout the season when you’re skiing at speed you get better at judging what’s what,” Bud explains “During the off season you forget, so when you have your first run of downhill you feel like you’re the fastest person alive, it takes a couple of runs to get used to it again, you get more of a concept of the speed and you become more comfortable, then things seem to slow down, you see things coming.
“It’s a lot like car racing, you have to pick the exact line you want through a corner and know where you have to pressure the skis and where you have to start turning and how much to keep that line. That comes from experience as well.”
This year and all the rest
Since Vancouver Bud has been surfing as much as he can – pretty much every day. “I’ve been down the coast, up the coast, catching up with friends,” he says with the somnolence of someone whose surfboard is his main daily concern.
Once the snow arrives he’ll ship out of his sister’s house in Cronulla, back to his home in Jindabyne for another winter of training. But the surfboard will go to. “It’s only two hours to the coast from the mountains. If you’re super keen you can go for some fresh turns in the morning and be in the surf before sunset,” he is confident.
Then in July or August he’ll head off to Chile to join the USA Ski Team for a training camp. “All the ski teams go to Chile for their speed training because the long, open steep slopes are ideal for speed training,” he explains.
“It’s good to ski with people who can push you, and show you how fast you can ski. It would be awesome to join the US guys full time (in Europe next winter) but we have to see if it will work,” he says.
Former teammate AJ Bear skied non-stop until the day hung up his boots and never skied again, completely skied out. Bud is sure he’s not going to be like that. “Obviously that’s part of the reason I’m still racing now, because I still love to ski. You may only get 10 great turns in a morning but those turns will make you feel good all week.
The ‘other’ sport
When he does retire he has his eye on the Thredbo Masters title, and perhaps the Thredbo Top to Bottom, but apart from the occasional big mountain experience he’ll stick to what he knows – you won’t see him lapping the park or strapping on telemarks. “I’ll be skiing,” he is certain. “I’ll be skiing wherever there’s snow… wherever there’s surf.”
