Pleas for alpine’s small step forward
IT’S going to take some digging but Greta Small wants to help lift alpine skiing “out of the graveyard” in Australia.
Twenty years ago the sport, along with the nascent aerial skiing program, largely carried the hopes of a nation when it came to the Winter Olympics.
At the Nagano Games of 1998 slalom skier Zali Steggall claimed bronze – the only Australian medal of the Olympics – before going on to become world champion the next year.
Two decades later alpine skiing is languishing at the top level in Australia. It’s happened for a number of reasons: from the rise of freestyle skiing and snowboarding and the subsequent ability of those sports to claim funds, to losing skiers in their teens, to a flat-out lack of results and talent.
Despite missing almost two years of skiing since the Sochi Games, Small wants to help in bringing about change. The 22-year-old, who’ll come up against the likes of American superstar Lindsey Vonn in the downhill today, is regarded as one of Australia’s best alpine prospects of the last decade with two top-eight performances at the Winter Youth Olympic Games of 2012.
She was 31st in the keenly contested super-G won by Ester Ledecka on Saturday in one of the biggest surprises in Winter Olympics history given the Czech is a world champion snowboarder.
“Everyone goes, ‘Wow, Ester’s result is such a shock’, but she has five people working for her – she has a ski tech, two coaches, physio and her mum works for her fulltime,” Small said.
Small competes with funding of $15,000 a year from the Olympic Winter Institute and has also received a special grant from the IOC of about $30,000 over 18 months.
“It starts at the top and it trickles down,” she said of alpine skiing in Australia.
“Look at the moguls program – Matt Graham and Britt (Cox) pretty much have (two-time Olympic medallist) Dale Begg-Smith to thank,” Small said. “That’s pretty much what it will take to pull alpine out of the graveyard.”
GRETA SMALL ON FUNDING