Icy chill among Aussie snowboarders

Olympic Winter Institute boss Geoff Lipshut has laid bare the frosty relationship between Australia’s silver medal-winning snowboarder Jarryd Hughes and team-mate Alex ‘‘Chumpy’’ Pullin.

Hughes claimed second in a high-stakes snowboard cross final at the Winter Olympics on Thursday with Pullin, a two-time worldchampion, crashing out in the decider to finish sixth.

Pullin left the course without speaking to or congratulating Hughes and Lipshut later confirmed there were long-standing issues between the pair.

‘‘Those are personal issues they have,’’ Lipshut said.

‘‘What we have done is put a process in place where they all respect each other as athletes. We’ve set up a process where they are happy to be on the same team here and they all get on well enough to do their sport - and that’s all we ask of them.’’

Hughes has his own coach and largely trains separately to Pullin and several other riders in the Australian snowboard cross team.

Things came to a head at the Sochi Winter Olympics over funding issues in the team. Hughes was part of a group using the hashtag ‘‘team outcast’’ on social media to express displeasure at the situation.

But Lipshut said those matters had been resolved and the team functioned well despite the divisions.

‘‘We actually rehearsed the leadin [to PyeongChang] for years. We said ‘you’re all going to be in the same team, you better get used to it’.

He added with a chuckle: ‘‘I’m actually not going to say what my worst fear was ... you need to be a very strong personality because it’s just dog-eat-dog out there.’’