SNOWBOARD: With just over 90 days to go until the second Winter Youth Games kick off in Norway, snowboard cross star Alex Dickson is leaving no stone unturned in his pursuit of Olympic glory.
Dickson, who is likely to be officially selected on the Australian Team for Lillehammer 2016 in the coming weeks, has given up the start of the Australian summer to head to Pitztal, Austria, where he will train and race for the next month.
The time in the European winter will be crucial to Dickson’s Lillehammer preparations as he looks to continue to increase his skill set in a sport where technique and timing is just as important as power and pace.
“With the camp we will be on the course most of the time racing others that are there while we will also have a bit of time for free ride,” said the 17-year-old Snowy Mountains Grammar school student.
“I’ll definitely be looking to improve my starts as they are one of my main focusses.
“I’ve been in the gym focussing on strength based stuff so I can improve these, so hopefully that pays off and I can start getting my timing right in the gates.”
Dickson will also get the chance to test himself against some of the best snowboard cross riders in the world.
“I’ll be racing in the Europa Cup and a Junior FIS race while I’m there.
“The Europa Cup is a pretty big World Cup qualifying event that will give me some good experience.
“In both events I’ll be racing a lot of people that will be going to the Youth Olympics so it will give me a good chance to see how they ride.
“It will help me figure out what I am coming up against and what I need to train towards.”
Following his time in Austria, Dickson’s schedule just seems to get even busier.
“I’ll be back home in December focussing on fitness and strength before the next three month stint that I’m away.
“I’ll then head to Canada and do another race and a tech camp before heading from there to Norway.”
With the world’s best also heading to the host city of the 1994 Winter Olympic Games the youngster is only expecting one thing.
“It will be pretty stiff competition with the best athletes at my age all competing.
“There will definitely be some pretty tight racing and no doubt fun racing.
“I’ll definitely give them a shake. It will be interesting to see how I go.”
While he may have little chance to breathe over the next three months there is no doubt that Dickson is already getting excited for the biggest event of his young career.
“I’m pretty stoked. It’s a dream come true.
“From a very young age I didn’t know what I wanted to represent my country in but I knew that I wanted to represent Australia on the world stage and I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way.”
The young gun could have chased that Olympic dream in mountain biking but now believes his time on two wheels is helping him on the powder.
“I got into mountain biking just before snowboarding and I always thought that would be the path I would go down.
“Boarder Cross gave me more of an adrenaline rush though.
“It’s sort of the same concepts in cornering in line choices when you are out on course so there is a good cross over between the two.”
Dickson will feature in an Australian Team of approximately 15 athletes in snowboard, alpine skiing, biathlon, cross country skiing, figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice hockey (skills challenge), luge and short track skating.
The Lillehammer Games will be the second Winter Youth Olympic Games, following on from Innsbruck in 2012. The 2016 version will include many of the venues from the Winter Games in 1994 with 1100 young athletes from 70 nations competing in 70 events. It will be a competition and education experience they will never forget.
Matt Bartolo
olympics.com.au
