Australia’s Winter Olympic hopefuls have been given their first taste of the trying conditions that await them at the Sochi 2014 Winter Games as they took to the Olympic venues for the first time at the official test event over the past fortnight. 

The Australian team continued its strong form on the world cup circuit in with nine top ten finishes including silver medals to Laura Peel (aerials) Holly Crawford (halfpipe).

The coastal Russian city was given its first major hit out as the countdown to the Winter Olympics entered its final year, hosting test events in the halfpipe, aerials, boarder cross, moguls, skeleton and ski cross. 

Halfpipe
Off the back of her second place finish at last month’s World Championships, Holly Crawford showed she would be a force to be reckoned with in the halfpipe come the 2014 Games as she claimed her 17th podium finish of her career.

Despite aggravating a long-standing injury in the event, she managed to put down a score of 78 in her first run of the final as America’s Kelly Clark won gold and Frenchwoman Sophie Rodriguez claimed third. 

Defending Olympic champion Torah Bright showed glimpses of her best but had to settle for 7th, resulting from a mistake on both runs, while Stephanie Magiros finished in 23rd, Hannah Trigger in 27th and Alexandra Fitch in 31st.

Aerials
Peel made it two podium finishes for Australia as she finished in second in what were extremely difficult conditions for the aerials event. 

The Mt Buller based skier finished the one jump, four-woman final with a score of 83.47 points to split the Chinese athletes Xu Mengtao (90.30) and Zhang Xin (82.21) on the podium.

Peel said she was thrilled by the result and is now looking forward even more than before to the World Championship in Voss, Norway, early next month.

“We didn’t have great training,” Peel said. “It’s been tough all week.

“The conditions were tough, especially in qualification earlier. It was a little easier tonight.”

The result lifted Peel to the third ranked aerial skier on the circuit this season behind Xu and teammate and defending Australia's Olympic Champion Lydia Lassilla who did not compete at the event.

Australia’s Danielle Scott finished in 5th place and currently sits 6th overall.

In the men’s event world number four David Morris finished 8th overall having started the night brilliantly by qualifying as the second top athlete with a score of 123.90, just 0.44 of a point short of top place.

Boarder cross
Recently crowned back-to-back World Champion Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin was unlucky to not claim another podium finish after being taken out in the final of the boarder cross event. 

Competing in his fifth final in as many events this season and the first since winning the World Championship, the Australian Institute of Sport rider crashed while in third place, and challenging for second, as the six finalists raced towards the finish line.

Pullin’s fall, brought about by Frenchman Pierre Vaultier crashing in front of him, pushed the Australian down to fifth place.

“There is a lot for me to take away from this event,” Pullin said.

“Plenty to analyse and develop a strategy for when we come back next time. The main thing is that I’m really fast. It’s always good to have the speed. I feel really calm when I’m racing and being able to make really good decisions. It’s an extremely tricky course to race.”

While finals are becoming a regular occurrence for Pullin, young gun Belle Brockhoff made just the second final of her fledgling World Cup career in the women’s competition.

Brockhoff finished 6th overall after also crashing as she looked to avoid another competitor.

“I saw Bell Berghuis crash in front of me and it was a case of either taking her head off or crashing into the gate. I crashed into the gate.

“The Italian girl passed me and won. I came sixth and all things considered I’m pretty happy with that.”

Moguls
Aussie teenager Matt Graham pulled off a career best result as he finished 7th and just missed out on the six man super final. 

Despite being pushed out of the round to contest for the medals, Graham was highly pleased with his performance.

“A couple of weeks ago in Deer Valley I was 10th and now I’ve stepped it up to a 7th. It’s pretty exciting,” he said.

“I’ve been focusing on putting down clean runs each competition. It seems to be helping me a lot, and trying to improve the quality of my skiing and jumps, not focusing on time.

“Going into 2014, I’m trying not to get too over-amped with this result because next year the conditions could be icy and not suit me at all.”

In the women’s event Britt Cox made the final as she finished 14th, with Taylah O’Neill claiming 24th and Nicole Parks was 32nd.

Skeleton
Michelle Steele has finished the Skeleton World Cup season with an 8th place in the final event, with the top ten result seeing her finish the season 9th overall.

Steele’s teammate Lucy Chaffer claimed 12th in the event to see her finish the season in equal 11th.

"The athletes gained a very good understanding of the track, and we as a team have learnt quite a lot about it,” said Australian team manager Dale Chapman.

“Unfortunately some of the execution of what we learnt was not quite up to the podium today, but we feel that we're certainly heading in the right direction to be in contention and pushing for those medals, come the Olympics in 12 months time."

Ski Cross
Anton Grimus enjoyed a World Cup career equalling best qualifying result and a fourth place in the consolation final in the ski cross test event.

The 22-year-old set up a solid performance by recording convincing wins in the round of 32 and a quarter final before finishing fourth in a semi-final.

With only the first two places from the semis qualifying for the final, Grimus had to be content with a place in the consolation final, in which he was fourth, ending the day in eight place overall.

“I can be confident that a medal is within reach,” Grimus said.

“I’ve have had a few good results this season and I’ve got things to work on. It’s good knowing that I have room for improvement.”

Australia’s number one male ski cross athlete, Scott Kneller, finished in 28th place.

Katya Crema was the day’s leading Australian woman, finishing in 11th place, with Sami Kennedy-Sims claiming 27th. Australia’s fifth squad member Jenny Owens did not compete due to soreness.

Olympic Winter Institute of Australia (OWIA) and AOC