SNOWBOARD SLOPESTYLE: The slopes of Breckenridge, Colorado are a far cry from the sands of Bondi Beach – but for 18-year-old Biba Turnbull they are both home.

Growing up, Turnbull’s life centred around the beach. With her family’s home overlooking Australia’s most famous stretch of sand, she was born into a life of surfing.

“It has been a major part of my life,” Turnbull said of her passion for surfing. “It is where I grew up and it is how I learnt everything on the [snow] board and it is where I feel the most at home. The water is my everything.”

Turnbull didn’t just enjoy surfing, she excelled at it – representing New South Wales at the State Titles. But as she got older and spent more and more time at the snow and competing in Interschools races, it became apparent that snowboarding was her future.

A move to the US East coast, where she finished her schooling in Vermont, saw the young Aussie making tracks for a promising career shredding with her idols Jess Rich and Torah Bright.

Turnbull has been competing in snowboard cross, halfpipe and slopestyle but is now focusing her attention on slopestyle as she heads towards a tilt at Olympic selection.

“I chose slopestyle because I feel like I get more of a rush from doing it because the course is always different and you always have to be able to adapt to the conditions and to the jumps that they’ve got there,” Turnbull explained.

“It’s also so open because there are so many different tricks that you can put into one run and such a variety of things that you can do.

“Women’s slopestyle has become extremely competitive over the past few years. The level of progression is so great to see and everyone is just pushing each other and it is just getting higher and higher. It is so awesome to be a part of.”

For Turnbull, surfing and snowboarding are intrinsically linked and she takes every opportunity to come back home to the white sands of Bondi to get some cross-training in.

“The crossover between surfing and snowboarding is quite similar,” she said. “The whole balance aspect of it at all and being able to adapt to the different conditions, I think that is something that is very similar with both of them.”

As well as surfing, Turnbull has been undertaking an intense campaign of rehabilitation in the gym and with her physiotherapist – the result of a knee injury which seemed certain to derail her Olympic campaign.

“I tore my ACL at the beginning of January this year,” Turnbull said, “I thought that that was going to be it.”

With her recovery expected to take until the end of November, this essentially ruled her out of contention for the World Cup circuit where she would need to qualify for the Games.

However, Turnbull’s steely determination and youthful enthusiasm saw her back on snow just a couple of months after surgery – a recovery which she has described as “amazing – much better than expected.”

Proving that she is in the Olympic mix, Turnbull not only got back on snow, but she took on the world at the Winter Games NZ, a World Cup selection event for Sochi. In trying conditions, she finished in the top half of the field in 23rd place, the third placed Aussie behind Michaela Davis-Meehan and Torah Bright.

With her knee now in near-perfect condition, Turnbull is focussed on the long road to Russia. After a few more weeks of sunshine and surf, she will pack her bags and head off to her second home in Breckenridge, where she will base herself for the Northern Winter, sharing a house with halfpipe hopeful Amber Arazny.

With the next World Cup looming at the end of December in Copper Mountain – a stone’s throw from Breckenridge – Turnbull is giving herself the best opportunity possible to lock in an Olympic berth.

“For me to qualify for Sochi through the World Cups this season, I just need to improve my results and try and get the best result that I possibly can,” she said. “And stay as consistent as possible and just land some solid runs that I feel are stylish and I am confident with.”

She’ll be the toast of Bondi and Breckenridge if she can make her Olympic debut in February 2014.