TEAM: Whatever end of the age spectrum they land on; there will be 40 Australian Olympic rookies at the Sochi Winter Games.

Of the 56 athletes selected in the 2014 Australian Olympic Team to date, some 70 per cent will wear the Olympic rings for the first time.

Nine of the first-timers are teenagers: Kent Callister (18), Alex Ferlazzo (18), Matt Graham (19), Brooklee Han (19), Jarryd Hughes (18), Brendan Kerry (19), Deanna Lockett (18), Taylah O’Neill (19) and Greta Small (18).

The youngest member of the 2014 Team, Ferlazzo discovered Luge just over four years ago. Tropical Townsville’s unlikely Olympian had only touched snow once when his mother met a Luge coach at her pilates class. From there he studied the sport, hit the Junior World Cup circuit, raced at the inaugural Winter Youth Olympic Games, and has now qualified for Sochi.

“It has been an amazing journey over the past four years,” Ferlazzo said.

“I have learnt so much and matured as a Luge athlete. It has brought great excitement to my life and I have travelled the world.”

Olympic selection is also sweet for 30-year-old Lucy Chaffer, who narrowly missed selection for the Vancouver Olympic Games in 2010. The West Australian transitioned into the daredevil sport of Skeleton when she was 23 after being a top flags sprinter at a Surf Life Saving Club in Perth.

“It is hard to describe my initial impression of Skeleton,” she says now. “It was something so far from any sport I had seen that it intrigued me.

“In flags there are always other people and outside influences that you have to consider in a short amount of time- Skeleton is much the same.”

Skeleton teammate  John Farrow on the other hand, was a downhill bike rider when he watched the Vancouver track being constructed and could not resist trying his hand at the face-first daredevil sport. Today Farrow was selected in his first Olympic Team- and he still rides his bikes.

“Downhill mountain biking, riding my motor bike – even go karting, these are all key to my training,” the 31-year-old says.

“Once you are on the sled, you are on a vehicle that you have to take round corners and pick lines. It’s like a Formula One race.”

There are plenty of similarities too between Daniel Greig’s impressive rollerblading skills and his new sport- Speed Skating.  Greig learnt to ice skate when he was 17, and at 22 is off to his first Olympics.

“Speed skating is still fairly new to me. Everywhere I see I can improve,” says the skater who just collected two silver medals at the World Championships.

“I know that if I’ve made these Games, then I can make the next one,” he adds. “But I’m concentrating on Sochi now. I definitely want to finish in the top five.”

Australia’s long tradition of converting gymnasts into Aerial Skiers has continued with former gymnasts Laura Peel, Danielle Scott and Samantha Wells set to take the Olympic stage for the first time.

Perhaps the most publicised transition in sport belongs to Olympic hurdler and mother Jana Pittman. Pittman and fellow Bobsleigh athlete Lucas Mata were running up and down the running track when the Vancouver Games lit up their TV sets in 2010. In the intervening Olympiad, both traded running spikes for Bobsleigh sleds to push their way into the 2014 Australian Olympic Team under the guidance of experienced pilots Astrid Radjenovic and Heath Spence.

Debutants Russ Henshaw, Anna Segal and Amy Sheehan arrive in Sochi already decorated skiers. The trio contest new sports on the Sochi Olympic program- Ski Slopestyle and Ski Halfpipe- and will be vying for the first medals ever awarded in these sports at the Olympics.

Then of course, there are the athletes who have been at their trade since they could walk- like figure skating pair Danielle O’Brien and Greg Merriman- ice dancing partners since they were eight and ten respectively- or alpine skier Ross Peraudo who skied to school whilst living in Italy.

Whatever their background and whenever they built up that tolerance to the cold, these Australians won’t waste time finding their feet in Sochi.