mt hotham fallsnews creek Incorporating Dinner Plain & The Great Alpine Road
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SEPTEMBER ISSUE, 2012
PHOTO: Chris Hocking
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2 ON TARGET Victorian biathlon champions test themselves in the snow
WINNERS ARE GRINNERS: The Kangaroo Hoppet Falls Creek 2012 attracted a stellar field and the women’s podium results were (from left) Marina Chernousov in second place, winner Maria Graefnings and Mt Beauty local and dual Olympian Esther Bottomley finishing in third place. The Kangaroo Hoppet is the opening race of the 2012-13 World Loppet series of longdistance cross-country ski racing. See page 3 for full story
POLAR EXPERIENCE 11 Boys from the Red Centre play in the snowfields of Victoria
OLYMPIANS VISIT 14 Stephanie Hickey and Paul Murray at Falls Creek
index Museum musings
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Mountain personality
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Alpine real estate Calendar of events
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No ‘Small’ feat for Porepunkah teen By SIMON CRASE scrase@nenews.com.au
GRETA Small’s big haul at the recent trifecta of slalom championships has demonstrated she is a genuine talent on the slopes and will be one to watch at two world championships next year and the Winter Olympics in 2014. With eight races up for grabs at the three resorts — Buller, Thredbo and Hotham — Small won seven and had to settle for second in one. “I was really happy to come back to Australia and do the races here, I al-
ways love skiing here and catching up with friends,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about winning, I was just relaxed and chilling and I know that’s when my best races are. “It’s a mix of being focused and relaxed.” The complete domination has her ideally placed to win the coveted Australia New Zealand Continental Cup, and even though she’s not competing in the Land of the Long White Cloud, she’s confident of having enough points accrued to take the cup later this month. The Porepunkah-raised girl took to her favorite run, Snake Gully at Hotham
for the ANZ Cup Giant Slalom recently and took out first on both days. She was thrilled to be the first person to win the giant slalom down the demanding black Snake Gully run. “They were my first two wins at Hotham so I was really happy with that,” she said. “That was the first time they’d held a giant slalom race down black Snake, it’s quite steeper than blue and I was quite hyped up to do that.” She started off her amazing haul at Buller in the opening round of the ANC Alpine Slalom Cup with a first and second, snaring first on day one in the sla-
lom and a second by 0.29 of a second to Norwegian Rikke Gasmann-Brott. Before competing at Hotham, Small successfully defended her National Slalom title at Thredbo, which capped off a remarkable week for the tenacious 16-year-old, as her win came just 48 hours after defending the National Giant Slalom Championship. She went on to win another two championships at the event, making it four from four, and back-to-back wins in three of the four after she was denied the chance of a quadrella in 2011. Continued page 4
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