In only his second season of competing in luge, Alex Ferlazzo has made history by winning bronze in a Junior World Cup – Australia’s first ever medal at this level. And on the same weekend 19-year-old Belle Brockhoff was Australia’s first female snowboard cross racer to reach the podium.

Ferlazzo placed third in the youth men’s event held in Norway over the weekend, just a fraction behind Gruber of Italy and Schutskiy of Russia. His blistering second run on the Lillehammer course saw him come home in 48.952 seconds. It was a big improvement from his first run of 49.403s and the second fastest run of the competition ensuring he moved on to the medal dais.

An unlikely sport for a teenager from Townsville in Australia’s tropics, Ferlazzo competed in his first international competition in 2011 before making a name for himself in January at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck. With little competition experience under his belt, Ferlazzo took on a strong contingent of young sliders at the debut event and finished a respectable 19th.

The Innsbruck experience gave Ferlazzo the drive he needed to push for Olympic selection in 2014. Having spent the rest of 2012 finishing up his high school studies, Ferlazzo flew out last week to join the world cup circuit and his first race definitely bodes well for the rest of the season.

Ferlazzo is now on the move to Konigssee in Germany this week where he will step up a division to the junior ranks, in order to post some results that can count towards Olympic Team selection.

Ferlazzo is not the only Youth Olympic athlete to be pushing for a spot on the Sochi 2014 Team. Innsbruck snowboarding bronze medallist Alex Fitch has just returned to her base in the United States to start the northern winter season, competing in both slopestyle and halfpipe.

The young teenager from the NSW Central Coast will be up against tough competition in the pipe to make the Sochi Team, with the likes of Vancouver gold medallist Torah Bright and 2011 World Champion Holly Crawford in the mix. However with the new discipline of snowboard slopestyle on the 2014 program, Fitch will be looking for some top results this season to push her experienced idols.

Seventeen-year-old Greta Small, who achieved several top-10 placings in alpine skiing at the Winter Youth Olympics, had a stellar domestic season in 2012 where she grabbed no less than seven first place finishes in senior Australian and New Zealand competitions. The extremely dedicated  skier, who is based for most of the year in Austria, has recently posted an impressive fourth place in the Super-G at the Nor-Am Cup in Copper Mountain, Colorado.

Next stop are the Europa Cup races where she will continue to master the new equipment rules in all events except slalom. Small is excited by the prospects of her first senior World Championships in Austria in 2013 and the World Junior Championships in Quebec, Canada. 

With rich young talent such as these athletes, it is no wonder that Australia is looking to field its largest and most successful Winter Olympic Team ever for Sochi 2014.

Alice Wheeler and Andrew Reid
olympics.com.au