As the Winter Olympics comes to an end we look back at all the emotion from the Australian team from broken knees to shattered dreams, medal highs and personal bests. All captured by the lens of AAP photographer, Dan Himbrechts.
Scotty James
Scotty was pitched as the ultimate rival to Shaun White and his perfect 100 before PyeongChang. We knew he had it in him to podium, we just didn’t know in which place. His lion heart and boxing gloves put him firmly in the favoured athlete place of Australians at home watching on their screens. His tearful emotional release with his mum, dad, sister, two brothers and girlfriend after winning bronze had us reaching for the Kleenex.
Brodie Summers
Big bad beautiful Brodie Summers came back from ACL surgery five months prior to compete at his second Olympic Games. But it wasn’t meant to be after tweaking his knee in his training run before qualifiers. There was hope he would be well enough to partake in the repechage but his PyeongChang dream ended when his knee would not co-operate.
Britt Cox
Australia’s mogul sweetheart, the country gal from Mt Beauty, Britt Cox went into the games with big pressure off the back of a record breaking season as Australia’s most successful World Cup athlete ever. She held the yellow bib throughout the competition season of 2016/2017, won the Crystal Globe and then went on to win the World Championships. Those who know Britt watched in anguish as the nicest girl in the sport got so close, qualifying 2nd in the first final and moving into the final 6 only to overshoot it in the final and finish 5th. She handled her obvious disappointment with grace and dignity.
Belle Brockhoff
It was an emotional rollercoaster of a winter for Belle Brockhoff who returned after an ACL injury mid way through the gold World Cup winning success of her 2016/2017 season only to tear the ACL again. With medical clearance she made the decision to compete without an ACL in PyeongChang in her beloved boarder cross finishing 10th on the day. A phenomenal effort from one of our toughest competitors.
Matt Graham
Mogul Matt is the larrikin from the Central Coast that edged his silver winning way into the hearts of Australia. Up against the mogul machine known as Mikael Kingsbury (the most successful male mogul skier of all time) he came out grinning with a second place podium and his father’s giant home made Aussie flag.
Sami Kennedy Sim
Sami fought hard on the skier cross course, made it to the semi finals and finished 8th, improving her Sochi results by 20 places. This giant ‘Sami faces’ were the most coveted crowd memorabilia at the games.
Andy Jung
It’s heartbreaking when an athlete crashes during competition. All those years of training shattered as the body falls. Andy Jung’s emotional pain was etched on his face as he went down during heat 1 of his short track competition.
Lydia Lassila
This one was hard to watch. Lydia Lassila, Vancouver Gold and Sochi Bronze medalist, back for her fifth (and final) Olympics competing in front of her husband and eldest son, six year old Kai. Off the back of gold and silver in the two World Cups prior to the games, Lassila was a true contender. But the dream ending was not meant to be as she crashed during the qualifications and failed to make it to the finals. Australia broke for her when she kept apologizing to the nation in her post event interview. It just made us love her more.
Jarryd Hughes
Jarryd Hughes’ response to winning silver was to turn to the gold place medalist, Pierre Vaultier, and hug him. The controversial Hughes from Sochi, put his neigh sayers in the corner when he crossed the winners line in second place and cemented himself the country’s first silver Olympic medal in boarder cross. He went on to take the place as flag bearer for the Closing Ceremony.
