Australian snowboarder Torah Bright performs an aerial during her first run in the women's snowboard halfpipe event. AAP Image/Julian Smith
Torah Bright overcame four Americans, three concussions, a dislocated jaw and a failed first run to become Australia’s first Winter Olympic gold medallist in snowboarding on Thursday.
The effervescent 23-year-old, who has literally taken the discipline of halfpipe to new heights in the last four years, proved she had an iron will behind her toothy smile, recovering from more slings and arrows than seemed possible to win at Cypress Mountain.
Qualifying first for the final, Bright had it all to do after crashing in the first of her two runs.
But her second effort, which included a switch backside 720 – a double spinning move that some men can’t even complete – took her to the top of the leaderboard with 45 points and a shot at the only thing that hasn’t come her way in a sport she has dominated in recent years.
With two of the skilful American troupe out of the race, Bright then had an anxious wait as two former Olympic champions in Kelly Clark and Hannah Teter could have spoiled the party.
But Clark couldn’t do better than third (42.2) and Teeter (42.4) teetered on her second effort to leave Bright the toast of Cooma in the NSW Snowy Mountains.
Fellow Australian Holly Crawford finished eighth.
Bright admitted to a few nervous moments but had little time to really contemplate what needed to be done because her failure in the initial finals run meant she was first up for the second.
“I knew that Kelly coming down could perhaps do that (beat her) but I kind of felt if I landed that run I would be on top,” she said.
“I’ve been working on it for a long time.”
The story behind the story for Bright was just what she had been through in the lead-up to the Games.
While two concussions were publicised, her mother Marion said she’d also sustained a fractured jaw just before Christmas and another head knock that was kept quiet.
And when Bright returned to the halfpipe after the initial fracture – American rider Kevin Pearce suffered a brain trauma, practising a similar kind of double-cork (two flip) trick.
“I hate it when they hurt themselves, for a mother it is horrifying,” Marion Bright said.
“The day she went back training after her jaw was done when she was doing her double twister they were all there training in the Park City halfpipe when Kevin had his accident.
“They were all very, very unnerved.”
But for all the horror stories Marion and her husband Peter could not be kept away on Thursday, surprising their daughter by being in the stands with a vocal group of Australian supporters.
“I thought they were back home in Australia, I told them not to come,” said Torah, who later found out that her parents had at one stage been hiding in her bedroom closet on Wednesday night when she was in her room.
“I told them I’d prefer them at my wedding (in June). I should have known they were going to come.”
Brother and coach Ben said his sister had deserved the victory after meticulous preparations and the best combination of tricks on the women’s tour.
“I’m pumped to get a tick in the box, it’s the only thing she hasn’t won and it has been six years in the making,” he said.
The medal is Australia’s second of the Games after Dale Begg-Smith’s silver in the moguls.
It is the nation’s fourth Winter Olympic gold medal and the second by a woman after aerial skier Alisa Camplin’s victory in 2002.
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