Being pushed into something as a kid by an older brother or sister is not unusual – but for Alex Fitch, when her older brother strapped her to a snowboard and pushed her down a snowy street as an eight-year-old, it was the kick-start of a passionate career in the sport.

The snowy mountains of Perisher Valley are a far cry from Fitch’s hometown of Norah Heads on the NSW Central Coast but they are the breeding ground of the teenager’s snowboarding obsession.

“I started boarding when I was eight on a family holiday and then did my first full season when I was 13,” Fitch said after winning the halfpipe, slopestyle and overall female champion at the Australian Junior Snowboard Series on the weekend.

“I’m really happy. It was my first day back in the pipe for a while and I had a really great day and performance in slopstyle,” Fitch said of her weekend wins. “I’m probably better at pipe but enjoy slopestyle more.”

Fitch has lofty goals and is inspired by halfpipe Olympic champion Torah Bright and World Champions Holly Crawford and Nate Johnstone, who she sometimes does dry land training with at the New South Wales Institute of Sport. 

The 16year-old splits her time between home on the Central Coast and Perisher Valley during the Australian winter and lives in Breckenridge, Colorado during the northern winter – with her dedicated family helping her transit between the three.

“Mum stays in Jindabyne for work, and dad and I drive up and back to manage school back home and then training and competing on the snow,” Fitch said.

“It’s definitely tough to manage it all, but I get lots of support and help along the way. I have a scholarship with the NSWIS [New South Wales Institute of Sport] and they are about to help me with a tutor so that will be good.”

Most teenagers find it hard enough to just get through high school – which makes what Fitch is achieving, even more remarkable.

“My friends back home on the Central Coast don’t really get it,” she said. “They question why I would want to be in winter all the time – being from the beach, a lot of my friends are surfers.”

“Some of my friends came and watched me compete a little while back and they asked me if they were the biggest jumps I competed on. I just laughed and said - No, they get a lot bigger than that!” Fitch said.

Fitch is also a surfer, the skills from which undoubtedly helped her in the basics of snowboarding. In the nine short years that she has been boarding, she has gone from strength to strength in the sport winning a litany of competitions and accolades along the way. When she is home she still finds time to do patrols at the local Surf Life Saving Club.

Competing at the 2011 Junior World Championships in Italy last April, Fitch qualified Australia a spot in both slopestyle and halfpipe at the upcoming 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck.

“I am really excited about Innsbruck,” said Fitch, who now needs to be nominated and selected to earn her spot on the Team.

“I’ve never competed in that sort of Olympic environment before so it would be an awesome experience. I think the atmosphere will be really amazing with all the athletes from other sports in the one place. I’ve never been drug tested or had other experiences that come with an Olympics either so it would be great practice for the Olympics.”

Innsbruck 2012 and the next Junior Worlds in Spain are the big things on the young snowboarder’s mind – but the ultimate goal?

“Sochi is definitely my goal,” Fitch said with conviction. With slopestyle on the Olympic program now, the rider has twice as many reasons to aim for the Russian Games in 2014.

“I was in America training during the last Olympics and I was watching Torah, Holly and the other Australians on the TV and cheering them on. The coverage was very focussed on the Americans but my parents taped all the qualifying and finals for me back home so I can keep watching it over and over.

“I can’t do the really hard tricks that Torah did to win the Olympics but I’m improving all the time.” 

Alice Wheeler
AOC