SNOWBOARD: Christmas has come early for two of Australia’s brightest young winter prospects Mollie Fernandez and Alex Dickson who have been selected to the Australian Team for the Lillehammer 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games.
The snowboard cross duo have excelled both on Australian shores and foreign soil in 2015 and will now get the chance to compete at the site of the 1994 Winter Olympic Games.
“I’m pretty stoked, it’s a dream come true,” said Dickson who lives near the NSW Snowy Mountains in Avonside.
“From a very young age I didn’t know what I wanted to represent my country in but I knew that I wanted to represent Australia on the world stage and I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way.”
“The Youth Olympics will be a massive event,” added Geelong’s Fernandez.
“It will be awesome opportunity to gain experience and certainly something that I’m really looking forward to competing at.”
Chef de Mission Ian Chesterman is almost as excited as the duo with the Australian Team taking shape ahead of February’s event.
“We’ve now selected almost half our Team with athletes from ice hockey skills challenge, biathlon, luge and now snowboard cross,” said Chesterman.
“The event will be an amazing opportunity for the athletes to compete on the world stage as well as take part in the educational and cultural programs Lillehammer will provide.”
Lillehammer 2016 will feature 1,100 of the best junior athletes from around the world and will be the perfect chance for Australia’s next crop of winter stars to test themselves against their peers.
“It will be pretty stiff competition with the best athletes at my age all competing,” said Dickson.
“There will definitely be some pretty tight and no doubt fun racing.
“I’ll definitely give them a shake. It will be interesting to see how I go."
Dickson has been non-stop over the past couple of months and will shortly head north to finalise his preparations for Lillehammer.
“I was in Pitzal, Austria in November which was great. Training went really well on the course they have there and the competitions I raced in had really good fields with plenty of World Cup riders.
“I’m next off to a free ride camp in Whistler in January before heading to Tabor Mountain to train and compete at the Tabor NorAm all ahead of Lillehammer.”
Fernandez has already departed the Australian summer to prepare herself in Colorado, USA.
“I’m training with Transition Snowboarding at Copper Mountain and Ski Cooper.
“We are doing a lot of training out on the course, making sure that our technique is all right and working on our weaknesses.”
The Youth Olympics will give her a chance to convert her Junior World Championships experience into another positive result.
“Having had the chance to compete against athletes from around the world at the World Champs will definitely help me for Lillehammer.
“I am aiming for a top ten finish but I’m really not sure how I’m going to go. I’ve raced against a few of the European girls and the American competitor and they’ll all be very tough competition.”
The snowboard cross competition will be held in Hafjell Freepark with each of the men’s and women’s competitions featuring 24 athletes.
Fernandez and Dickson join biathletes Darcie Morton and Jethro Mahon, ice hockey (skills challenge) athletes Madison Poole and Jake Riley along with luge youngster Beth Slade and short track speed skater Julia Moore on the Australian Team.
Along with these sports Australia is also expected to be represented in freestyle skiing, alpine skiing, snowboard halfpipe and cross country skiing to take the team to approximately 14 athletes.
The Lillehammer Games will be the second Winter Youth Olympic Games, following on from Innsbruck in 2012. The 2016 version will include many of the venues from the Winter Games in 1994 with 1,100 young athletes from 70 nations competing in 70 events. It will be a competition and education experience the athletes will never forget.
Matt Bartolo
olympics.com.au
