CROSS COUNTRY: Liam Burton and Lilly Boland are likely to have their youth Olympic dream realised after posting strong results at both the 2015 Australian Open and Junior Championships for Cross Country Skiing.
The pair have been nominated to the Australian Olympic Committee for selection to the Lillehammer Winter Youth Olympic Games held in Norway in February 2016.
Selection is reliant on International Ski Federation awarding Australia two quota places in cross country skiing for Lillehammer 2016. This is considered to be an administration formality. To be eligible for selection athletes must be born in 1998 or 1999.
Boland was extremely impressive across the back-to-back weekends of racing as she finished as the highest ranked under-18 athlete in all four events she competed in.
The Ulladulla athlete claimed sixth overall in the 5km Classic event at the Australian Open Championships at Perisher Valley (NSW) before missing the final in the Sprint Freestyle as she finished fifth.
A week on at Falls Creek (VIC) she was again the top ranked junior in both the Classic and Sprint Freestyle events as she finished second overall to Katerina Paul in both races at the Junior Championships.
“After training really hard I was really happy with all of my results,” said Boland.
“I was hoping to qualify for the Youth Olympics but I knew there would be some tough competition to make it.
“I only started last season so I didn’t think I would get to this level so quickly.
“It will great now to be able to experience competition overseas.”
Cooma’s Liam Burton performed strongly to finish sixth in 10km Classic event at the Australian Open Championships at Perisher before backing up to claim the victory at the junior event a week later, at Falls Creek ahead of fellow under-18 athletes Seve De Campo (third overall) and Finlay Clarke (sixth).
The 17-year-old claimed 12th in the Open Sprint Freestyle event after bowing out in the quarter-finals at the Australian Open Championships before making the semi-finals in the junior event as he finished sixth.
“I was happy with the results across the four events especially for the distance events,” Burton said.
“I’ve never had the opportunity to compete for Australia so it will be a great honour and something that I am very proud of.”
Boland and Burton will now turn their attention to readying themselves for international competition as they wait for official selection.
“We have one more big competition before the end of the season,” Burton said.
“I’ll then keep fit doing triathlons in the summer before we likely head over to Europe early in the new year to train and get ready for the competition.”
The quota places for cross country skiing will not be handed out to countries until January. Only after the quota places are confirmed will Australia’s athlete’s selection be confirmed.
Matt Bartolo
olympics.com.au
