Torah Bright reveals she didn’t train for two months ahead of halfpipe silver medal at Sochi
- Anthony Sharwood Exclusive / News Limited Network
- February 15, 2014 // News.com.au |
Torah Bright celebrates her halfpipe silver medal in Sochi. Picture: AFP
Source: AFP
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IT’S the equivalent of an Olympic swimmer not touching the water for months before an Olympics.
In an extraordinary revelation, Torah Bright has revealed she did
not train at all for the halfpipe for two months leading up the Sochi
Winter Olympics.“I haven’t ridden halfpipe since December until I won my medal the other night or whenever it was,” she confessed.
You read it right. Australia’s most successful female Winter Olympian doubled her personal medal tally in her pet event this week with absolutely no training for two months beforehand.
That’s a better trick than anything she pulled in the pipe the other night.
Torah Bright’s silver medal winning run in the Women's Snowboard Halfpipe Final.
Source: AFP
The boardercross event had always seemed like an afterthought, a race Bright would try her luck in after her two main events with no real expectations of success. Yet she revealed overnight that in the lead-up to Sochi, it had been her main focus.
“Boardercross is the one I’m most prepared for. I’ve ridden more boardercross than anything,” she said.
Boardercross is a very different event to Torah’s two previous events of halfpipe and slopestyle, both of which involve a series of judged flips and jumps.
The helter-skelter event is a race to the bottom in an elimination format with six racers battling each other along a hair-raising course dotted with huge berms and jumps.
Torah Bright of Australia wins the silver medal during the Snowboarding Women's Halfpipe at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.
Source: Getty Images
“I love going fast, I love racing cars, and when you’re racing, you’re living and everything else is just waiting.
“This event to me is more fun because it’s less challenging mentally and physically for me.
“I am so thrilled to have the opportunity to be here and race.”
Torah Bright is the athlete who keeps surprising at these Games. You can no more pin down her personality than you could pin a live, flapping butterfly to a corkboard.
Bright arrived in Sochi extremely fired up to say the least. She and her brother and coach Ben were fired up at the course designers, fired up at the snow quality, fired up at Russia, fired up at the Olympics, fired up, it seemed, about everything.
Torah Bright of the Australian Snowboard team poses in the Olympic Park during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.
Source: Getty Images
You should see how much even her rivals love her. She’s got a hug for everyone in Sochi and everyone’s got a hug for her. Even at the training course, everyone wants to talk to her. Torah Bright is snow sports royalty.
Bright only qualified for the boardercross in Sochi at the last minute, an eighth-placed finish at a World Cup race in Andorra securing her spot – but only after a couple of overseas athletes dropped out.
“When I started this boardercross journey, everybody laughed at me, they said ‘there’s no way she can do it’,” she said.
“It’s not easy at all, not one bit. I have put everything on the sideline really to give time to boardercross and learning the technique and learning how to ride these boards.”
Bright has received help from the best there is – in the shape of Australian flagbearer and men’s boardercross gold medal favourite Alex “Chumpy” Pullin.
“Chumpy’s been great and everyone’s been awesome with sharing their knowledge with me. I’m just excited to talk to everybody and get their feedback and just dream of going really, really fast tonight.”
Many experienced winter sports pundits here in Sochi rate Bright’s medal chances much higher than her official world boardercross ranking in the 20s, on account of the fact she’s got nothing to lose with a medal already securely in her luggage.
Pullin himself believes Bright can give the event a shake.
“Look, it’s certainly not her strongest event given that she only started being back on tour for the last couple of years.
“But the fact is she’s a talented snowboarder and she’s a fierce competitor. Underneath all the smiles and happiness, she wants to win.
“I spoke to her before dropping in. I said ‘look, this is your course as much as anyone else’s right now.”
Bright will be joined in the snowboard cross today by Belle Brockhoff, another outspoken Aussie Winter Olympian who is our only openly gay athlete in Sochi.
Neither of them can be ruled out, but Bright has momentum on her side, as well as the knowledge that this is her last competitive hit-out in any event all winter.
Bright heads off to fulfil sponsors’ obligations after Sochi. That’s snowboard speak for making videos in some of the most exotic snowboarding locations on earth. Nice work if you can get it.
First things first: speed. One last little burst of fired-up Torah, this time not in the press conference room, but on the snow.
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