Australia's team size for the Torino Winter Games now looks like being a minimum of 33, which would make it the largest in the nation's history.

The 31-member team which went to Squaw Valley in 1960 is the largest to date and that team included the only ice hockey team we have ever sent to a Games.

Australia will send the largest cross country contingent in its Olympic history to Torino 2006, be represented in luge for the first time since 1994, and also have representatives in every snowboard event for the first time after the latest round of northern hemisphere competition.

Skiing in a cross country World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, Victorian Esther Bottomley finished in 39th place, securing a top 80 per cent of field result in what was her last chance to register a qualifying performance.

She joins fellow Victorians Paul Murray, who had posted a qualifying result for Games selection in the first two sprint events of the season, and Clare-Louise Brumley, who has produced her qualifying result in the pursuit event in Le Relais, Canada, in mid-December.

Australia has had two cross country representatives at a Winter Games on six occasions, but never topped that number. Torino will also be the first time that the team has included two women.

Luge racer Hannah Campbell Pegg, 23, has met the requirements for Torino 2006 and become's the second woman and third athlete to represent Australia at the Games. 

In snowboard, Emily Thomas ticked off the last of her qualifying requirements by finishing in third place in a Nor-Am Cup race in Mt Hood Meadows, Oregon.

The result means that Australia will have at least seven competitors in snowboard at the 2006 Games.

Thomas and Damon Hayler have met the qualifying requirements in snowboard cross, Johanna Shaw and Emanuel Oppliger have done the same in parallel giant slalom, and Torah Bright, Holly Crawford and Andrew Burton have all met the halfpipe performance criteria of the Australian Olympic Committee and the International Ski Federation.

The halfpipe ranks could also be swelled by the addition of Ben Mates and Mitchell Allan if they meet the International Ski Federation qualification requirements before January 24th.

Australia's injury battered aerial skiing stars are set to make a return to World Cup competition at Deer Valley, Utah, on January 13.

Olympic champion Alisa Camplin, former world champion Jacqui Cooper and former world No.2 Lydia Ierodiaconou have all made miraculous recoveries from injury.

Camplin and Ierodiaconou both underwent knee recontructions in 2005 with Camplin returning to skis on Christmas Day  - just 11 weeks after undergoing radical surgery in which a cadaver's tendon was grafted into her knee.

Australian aerial skiing coach Todd Ossian is confident she will compete conservatively in Deer Valley.

The three stars will skip this weekend's World Cup competition at Mount Gabriel in Quebec, in favour of training at Apex.

In their absence, fellow Olympic hopefuls Liz Gardner, Bree Munro and Lainie Cole will fly the Australian flag.

AOC