Have A Go Olympic Challenge 2024

HAVE A GO AT OLYMPIC SPORTS

FIND YOUR SPORT
Background image

Historic weekend for Australian Cross Country Team

 

Historic weekend for Australian Cross Country Team

Author image
AOC
Historic weekend for Australian Cross Country Team
It’s been a historic weekend for Australia’s cross country skiing team just weeks out from the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

CROSS COUNTRY SKIING: It’s been a historic weekend for Australia’s cross country skiing team just weeks out from the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

Jessica Yeaton and Barbara Jezersek made Australia’s first ever Team Sprint final, finishing 10th, while Callum Watson and Phil Bellingham just missed out on achieving the same feat in the men’s event as they claimed 12th overall.

Bellingham kicked off the weekend by finishing 27th in qualification for the Individual Sprint, 5.64 seconds off the leading time, to make the 30-man Final for the first time.

"I was so pumped to finally get through to the heats, I've been wanting it so bad for so many years now," Bellingham said.
 
"I've had a lot of results where I've been really close and just missed out, I had basically given up on being able to do it so I was pumped when it happened.

Lining up in a tough quarter-final which featured the eventual gold and bronze medallists, Bellingham finished just 2.35 seconds back on the 1.2km course, in a time that would have won two of the other heats.

"The heat i was in was a hot one but I was happy to be able to hold my own with those boys. I got a bad start but came back and was feeling good, just didn't have a lot of room to work with on such a tight fast course."

Yeaton just missed the Individual Sprint quarter-finals herself after finishing 35th, less than a second off qualifying, as Jezersek claimed 45th and Watson finished 61st.

The next day the women turned it on in the Team Sprint to finish sixth in their semi-final and progress to the final, with nations such as Norway, Russia, France and Austria missing the cut.

"We had a good ski and some good luck as well," Jezersek said.

"Our group had good fast conditions and our time was faster than from second qualifying group.


"We skied strong and we fought until the end. I managed to pass Russian team and that sixth place in our qualifying group took us to finals."

The Aussie duo, who each completed three circuits of the 1.2km course, finished the final in a time of 14:00.93, 27.53 seconds off the Swedish winners who were involved in a thrilling finish with a second Swedish team and the USA.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd7fPvuj_vr/

The Aussie men were agonisingly close to qualifying for the Team Sprint final themselves, finishing just 1.2 seconds behind the winner of their semi-final and also ahead of higher ranked nations Germany, France, Austria and Canada. Italy went on to claim the gold ahead of Sweden and Russia.

"To be only 1.2 seconds off the win was incredible, especially after we lost a lot of time on the first exchange when Cal got caught in a crash before  handing off to me," Bellingham said.

"This gives us a lot of confidence heading into the olympics and hopefully we can go one better there."

To add to the weekend's excitement Jezersek and Yeaton got to share the Presidential Suite of the hotel they were staying staying in.

"It's all thanks to Jess as she arrived as the first athlete and Finn (SSA Cross Country Director) who made us the first entry for the race," Jezersek said.

"It was an amazing stay."

Matt Bartolo
olympics.com.au

MORE ON WINTER
Top Stories