ELDORADO ROLLS TO WIN
Pairs qualifier from Sydney will be first native Aussie to compete
The Eagles advance in the Class 6A football playoffs with a 56-35 first-round victory over West Mesa.
SYDNEY — Figure skater Harley Windsor is set to be the first indigenous Australian to compete in the Winter Olympics after being selected for next year’s Pyeongchang Games, just a little over a decade after he stumbled into a sport he knew nothing about.
Windsor and Russian-born teenager Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya, the junior world pairs champions, secured an Olympic spot with a bronze medal in a qualifying competition in Germany in late September and were among the first four athletes to be confirmed in the Australian team on Thursday.
Brendan Kerry and Kailani Craine were selected to compete in the individual figure skating events in Pyeongchang next February.
The 21-year-old Windsor, from western Sydney, said his selection “feels like an amazing and mindblowing accomplishment.”
“I grew up in the Aboriginal community and have always been around Aboriginal culture,” he said, “so it’s been a huge part of my life and something that I’m very proud of.”
There have been 51 indigenous Australian Summer Olympians, including Cathy Freeman, who ignited the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Games in 2000 and won gold the following week in the 400 meters.
Windsor fell into figure skating by accident at age 8 when his mother took a wrong turn while looking for a fast-food restaurant and mistakenly drove into the car park of a small ice rink.
Windsor asked his mother if he could take a look inside and, after persuading her to let him strap on a pair of skates, he slid onto the ice and was instantly hooked.
“I just really liked it so I asked if could come back the next week, then the next week, then the week after that,” Windsor told The Associated Press. “I didn’t think it would go anywhere but when I started to get serious, I actually started to enjoy the sport even more.”
Windsor almost quit the sport in frustration two years ago because he was unable to find the right partner in Australia, but his Russian coach suggested he go to Moscow to find a perfect match.
It was there that he was introduced to Alexandrovskaya, a classically trained pairs specialist.
The pair quickly forged a good working relationship and although they train mostly in Moscow, Alexandrovskaya agreed to give up her dream of competing for Russia and applied for Australian citizenship. The 17-year-old Alexandrovskaya was granted citizenship last month.