ZHANGJIAKOU, China (Reuters) – Australian Alisa Camplin, who won gold at the 2002 Winter Games and bronze at Turin, said on Friday the new generation of skiers are prepared and more than ready to compete at the Beijing Olympics.
Camplin, who retired from aerial skiing after competing in the 2006 Games, is in Beijing as the deputy chef de mission for the Australian 2022 team.
Asked at a news conference if she had any advice for the Aussie aerial skiers competing in Beijing, Camplin said she was there to support them in the background and felt the athletes had done everything they can to prepare.
“What they do day in and day out and what got them to be here, what enabled them to achieve the performances that put them on the world standing they hold today, they don’t need to do anything other than that,” Camplin said.
“They have everything they need in them, in their bodies, their heads, their experience and they just need to do their normal.”
Australia has a particularly successful track record in aerials, which sees skiers soar to perform complex flips and stunts after jumping off a steep snowy slope.
Danielle Scott, 31, said it was a privilege to be from a team with such a storied history. Scott has said that Camplin was one of her heroes that got her inspired to take up the sport.
“It’s definitely pretty special to be following in the footsteps of great success, that gives us an amount of confidence too, you know, seeing what they’ve done to get here and what we need to do,” Scott said.
(Reporting by Mari Saito; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
