New campaign for skeleton medals | Australian Olympic Committee

Another exciting phase in Australian winter sport is about to get underway with the announcement of a new squad of skeleton athletes by the Australian Institute of Sport and the OWI. Surf lifesaving has once again supplied the vast majority of the talented athletes who have been selected to join our three established skeleton athletes for another tilt at Olympic and World Cup sliding glory.

Another exciting phase in Australian winter sport is about to get underway with the announcement of a new squad of skeleton athletes by the Australian Institute of Sport and the OWI.

Surf lifesaving has once again supplied the vast majority of the talented athletes who have been selected to join our three established skeleton athletes for another tilt at Olympic and World Cup sliding glory.

The six girls chosen after an intensive training and testing camp at the AIS earlier this month are:
• Lucy Chaffer, 22, a former beach flags, water polo and netball competitor from Perth,
• Chelsea Frost, 26, a former beach relay athlete from Perth,
• Renee McCabe, 27, also with a surf sprinting background and again from Perth,
• Teniele Richards, 17, surf sprinting and athletics, from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast,
• Amilia Wallace,18, an athletics and touch football representative from Brisbane; and
• Lisa Wright, 21, a beach and track sprinter, from Newcastle, NSW.

They will join established athletes, Torino Olympian Michelle Steele, world junior Champion Melissa Hoar, and former track sprinter Emma Lincoln-Smith, in a two week training camp in Calgary, Canada, in early November.
Two of the six new competitors would be eliminated at the end of that period, once their abilities on a proper skeleton track had been assessed.

‘We need to see how this talented group of athletes compete in actual skeleton conditions before a final decision is taken on the Australian squad to progress a series of World Cup events around the world in the next five months,’ said AIS Senior Talent Search Coordinator, Elissa Morley.

OWIA Chief Executive Officer Geoff Lipshut said the Institute was delighted with the remarkable results from the first skeleton project in 2004-2006 and excited by the quality of the athletes chosen to join the experienced sliders in the lead up to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

‘Both OWIA and the AIS have learned a lot, very quickly, from our initial campaign and we are confident that we can exceed the remarkable feats achieved in such a short time leading up to Torino,’ he said.