Athlete Bios
Snowboarding
Bright's snowboard talents run in the family
Last Updated: Friday, February 5, 2010 | 4:30 PM ET
New York Times for CBC Sports
In Vancouver Australia's Torah Bright will be looking to improve on her fifth-place finish at the Winter Olympics in Turin. (Fabrice Coffrini/ Getty Images)There are those who believe that snowboarder Torah Bright of Australia should have won an Olympic medal in the halfpipe at the 2006 Turin Games. Her first run was technically sound, difficult and nearly perfect. Her second run was almost identical. Almost.
Bright did the exact same run twice, but the second time did it switch style — meaning she led with her opposite foot, creating a mirror image of her stellar first run. It might be the most difficult trick of them all, the equivalent of a left-handed hockey player performing a jaw-dropping deke, then doing it again as a right-hander.
Judges, it seemed, were slow to catch on. She finished a disappointing fifth.
But Bright (born Dec. 27, 1986) does not have the personality to stay down for long. She won the Ticket to Ride world tour title the next year, and the gold medal in the superpipe competition at the 2007 and 2009 X Games.
An Olympic gold medal, she admitted, would be a career highlight. Regardless of the end result, Bright’s telegenic smile and poise, which have already made her a favourite of photographers, will likely make her a fan favourite, too.
Bright, from New South Wales, comes from a family of gifted skiers and snowboarders in a country with little Olympic history in snow sports. Her sister, Rowena, competed in alpine skiing at the 2002 Salt Lake Games. An older brother, Ben, is a professional snowboarder and coaches Torah.
While Bright is the lone halfpipe medal contender from Australia, she has made a comfortable home in the United States, buying an old house in an established neighborhood in Salt Lake City. During an interview in November, she said she thought the house might be haunted.
Cheerfully self-deprecating, Bright acknowledged that given a choice between spending a day snowboarding and spending it on skis, she would choose the latter.
“It’s the one thing I have to do each year, put on skis and cruise,” she said, adding that she grew up hoping to be a competitive skier, like her sister, who now lives in Massachusetts. “In skiing, you can go so, so fast,” she added.
And while she loves the speed of skis, Bright has made her mark flying high on the halfpipe, and she might just reach the top of the podium in Vancouver. She plans to do the same routine she did in Turin, with extra rotations here and there. This time, she hopes, the judges will recognize just how good she is.
