The 2020 Winter Youth Olympics Games, which took place in Lausanne, Switzerland, concluded this week.
The event featured over 2000 athletes from 73 countries, aged 15-18. Of the 33 young athletes representing Australia in eight different disciplines, 18 were girls. The following is a resume of their individual performances in the tournament in alphabetic order of events.
In Alpine Skiing, Australia had two young girls competing. ACT native Isabella Davis and NWS native Zoe Michael competed in all four events: the Super G, Giant Slalom, Slalom, and Alpine Combined.
Michael finished 43rd in the Super G, 25th in the Giant Slalom and 27th in the Slalom. She did not finish the Alpine combined. Michael finished 48th in the Super G and did not finish the remaining events.
In Biathlon, a combination of cross-country skiing and shooting, Australia's three young girls competing all hail from NWS: Chelsey Johnson, Isabella Moon, and Luka Miskin. In the 10km race Miskin finished 47th, Johnson finished 60th and Moon finished 76th. In the 6km sprint Miskin finished 50th and Johnson finished 74th. In the mixed-gender relay, the Australians finished 23rd. In the single mixed-gender relay, they finished 26th.
Really solid results from the @AUSBiathlon Women in the 10km Individual event at @lausanne2020.
— AUS Olympic Team (@AUSOlympicTeam) January 11, 2020
Luka Miskin: 47th (shooting clean in prone)
Chelsey Johnson: 60th (with a PB, shooting clean in prone and only missing 2 standing shots)
Isabella Moon: 76th
Congratulations Team! 👏👏 pic.twitter.com/omhXgnTBPq
In Cross Country Skiing, two Aussie girls from NWS competed: Rosie Fordham and Zana Evans. Both finished 36th and 37th, respectively in the five kilometre classic. Evans finished 41st and Fordham 48th in the Cross Country Free event. Evans finished 46th and Fordham 56th in the Sprint Free event.
In Freestyle Skiing, Australian girls competed in all four events. In the Girl’s Big Air NWS’s Mia Rennie finished 10th in the final. NWS’s Abi Harrigan also competed in the Big Air finished 15th in the preliminaries. She also competed in the Girl’s Halfpipe finishing 10th overall. Harrigan missed out on the finals in both competitions. Harrigan did make the finals in the Girl’s Slopestyle competition, finishing 12th overall. Rennie finished 15th in the Slopestyle preliminaries.
In Ice Hockey, Australia had four girls competing in the mixed nations 3x3 tournament: ACT’s Ebony Brunt, QLD’s Courtney Mahoney, and WA’s Nikki Sharp and Molly Lukowiak. Mahoney’s team won silver and Sharp’s team won bronze. Brunt and Lukowiak were both on teams that did not medal.
In case you missed it... Aussie athletes won 3 @lausanne2020 3x3 Ice Hockey medals overnight!
— AUS Olympic Team (@AUSOlympicTeam) January 15, 2020
Congratulations Courtney Mahoney 🥈, Nikki Sharp 🥉 and Sai Lake 🥉#YouthOlympics #Lausanne2020 pic.twitter.com/EgOS7FkEo4
In Ski Cross, a downhill ski race over a number of obstacles, Kyra Wheatley of NWS and Zoe Michael who also competed in Alpine Skiing, represented Australia. Wheatley finished 6th in panel 1, tied for 10th overall, and Michaels finished 8th in panel 2, tied 13th overall. Neither made the semi-finals of the competition. Australia also fielded a mixed-gender ski-snowboard cross team that made it to the quarter-finals of the competition.
In Snowboard, VIC’s Lily Jekel and NWS’s Alexandra Chen finished 14th and 17th respectively in the Big Air preliminaries. They finished 11th and 13th respectively in the Halfpipe preliminaries. They finished this with a 15th and 18th position respectively in the Slopestyle. Both girls missed out on the finals in all events.
In Snowboard Cross, similar to Ski Cross but on a snowboard, Australia had ACT native Amber Essex and NWS’s Josie Baff competing. Essex narrowly missed out on the finals finished tied for 10th in the preliminaries. Baff went on to win both her semi-final and the big final, winning Australia’s first-ever Youth Winter Olympic Games gold medal. She served as Australia's Flag Bearer for the closing ceremonies.
Snowboard cross gold medallist Josie Baff named Australian Closing Ceremony Flag Bearer for #Lausanne2020!
— AUS Olympic Team (@AUSOlympicTeam) January 22, 2020
The Ceremony will be streamed live at https://t.co/q0Bkw6NHgs from 5am AEDT Thursday Jan 23.@SnowAust @OWI_AUS pic.twitter.com/MSA1S7EAKQ
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