FREE AND ANYTHING BUT EASY FOR DAVIS-MEEHAN

WHEN Michaela Davis-Meehan steps onto the mountain for the start of the Freeride World Tour next year, she will be the only Australian among six of the best free riders in the world.

It’s an impressive feat for someone who lives on the Tweed Coast and is unable to train full time. Yet for Davis-Meehan the chance to compete at the pinnacle of her sport is something she has truly earnt.

“It’s huge for me,” she said of qualifying for the world tour.

“I’ve been competing my whole life and freeriding for the past three years so to make the world tour is pretty surreal.”

Davis-Meehan beat 112 fellow competitors to finish first in the world tour’s Europe Oceania region after not competing last year due to an ACL reconstruction.

The 27-year-old, originally from Newcastle, now calls Kingscliff home and is forced to spend several months a year saving enough money to fund her snowboarding dream.

Unlike Olympic competition, freeriding features tricks performed off rocks and natural landscapes.

“I’ve been trying to get some funding but I’m mostly self-funded and work bar jobs as much as I can during the summer to get by,” she said.

“There’s been times where I’ve had three jobs to try and save up for the winters because I don’t work when I’m over in Europe because I want to focus on training and competing for those few weeks.”

When she’s not overseas training, Davis-Meehan keeps fit by crossing codes though nothing compares with snow training

“It is hard but you just have to focus on that end goal and getting over there,” she said of not being able to train in the snow full-time like other riders.

“For me it’s mainly about keeping fit and keeping my strength up so I do a lot of yoga and surfing but on-snow training is the best.”

Davis-Meehan’s first foray into the snow came via family trips to the slopes and even saw her named as a shadow team member for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi before she made the switch to freeriding.

“My parents were keen skiers so they always took my brother and I on school holidays to the slopes,” she said.

“It escalated from there and we started going to the ski fields every weekend and at 15 I was competing in slope style competitions.”