Blonde, literate and among the best in her chosen snow sport - Anna Segal better get used to the comparisons with Torah Bright.
Blonde, literate and among the best in her chosen snow sport - Anna Segal better get used to the comparisons with Torah Bright.
Segal, 26, is Australia's defending world champion at the new Winter Olympic sport of slopestyle skiing and is a serious gold medal prospect at the Sochi Games in 2014.
While Vancouver gold medallist Bright plies her trade on a snowboard in the halfpipe, Segal skis on a purpose-built course where the athlete scores points for tricks performed off rails, jumps and boxes.
And with Bright and fellow 2010 Games champion Lydia Lassila (aerial skiing) still working their way back to top form after extended breaks, the spotlight is soon expected to fall on Segal who is yet to develop a major profile outside the snow sports community.
Not that she minds the parallels with someone who has also reached the pinnacle of her sport.
"I would love to be compared to Torah," Segal said from Colorado where she is in training for the first World Cup event of the year at Copper Mountain on Sunday (AEDT).
"She's an amazing athlete and a really great person. If anyone makes that comparison, I'd be stoked."
Segal will attempt to defend her 2011 world championship crown in Norway in March but, in the meantime, she has a slew of World Cup, the X-Games and pro tour events to compete in as she gears up for the Winter Olympics.
Her sport is not without its risks, skiers attempting bigger and bigger jumps and more complex tricks to impress judges.
And like in skier halfpipe, another new sport for Sochi, that pursuit of the extreme can have consequences.
Last year, Canadian skier Sarah Burke died while practising tricks in the halfpipe, slamming her head and going into cardiac arrest.
Segal acknowledges the dangers.
"It's an action sport; it's a high-risk sport and it's a really fine line between pushing yourself enough to be ahead of the pack and pushing yourself too much when you are not ready," she said.
"Bad things happen - that disaster (Burke) was the worse case scenario. You can be feeling so strong, almost invincible and you haven't been injured for years and then, in the blink of an eye, you do that extra run and something goes wrong."
That said, Segal is still keen to work on more difficult jumps to give her an advantage come Sochi.
She'll attempt to bed down a jump that involves a double inversion - which hasn't been seen in women's competition yet.
"It's exciting but, at the same time, a little bit scary. You know at some point you are going to have to do this trick or that trick and it scares me," she said.
"But I know I am going to have to overcome that fear and get it done."
AAP