With two days to go to the opening ceremony of the XXV Olympic Winter Games in Milano-Cortina, here are my top 10 unusual facts about Australians at the Games.
10. Three Australians have competed at the Winter Olympics as mothers: 31-year-old mother-of-two Judy Forras competed in Alpine skiing at Innsbruck in 1964, Kerryn Rim (biathlon) became a mother in between her first two Olympic appearances in 1992 and 1994, and Lydia Lassila gave birth to a son in 2011, three years before her fourth Games in Sochi in 2014 and her second son in 2015, three years before she competed in a fifth Games in 2018. Lydia is also the only medal-winning mother.
9. Tasmania remains the only Australian state of territory that has not produced a Winter Olympian. Ironically, it is our coldest state.
8. Two Australian Winter Olympians were born during a Winter Olympics: Phil Tahmindjis (speed skating 1988, 1992, 1994) was born during the Grenoble 1968 Games and Holly Crawford (snowboarding 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018) was born during the Sarajevo 1984 Games.
7. Frank Prihoda, who competed in Alpine skiing at Cortina d’Ampezzo in 1956, became the first Australian Olympian to attain the age of 100 in July 2021. He passed away in November 2022, aged 101.
6. Christine Davy (Alpine skiing 1956, 1960) was the first woman in Australia to gain a full commercial pilot’s license and is a member of the Australian Aviation Hall of Fame. She is the last survivor of the eight-member Australian team that competed at the Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956 Games.
5. Ben Acton (ice hockey Squaw Valley 1960) was also selected to captain the men’s hockey team at the summer Games in Rome later in the year but could not afford to make the trip. He flipped a coin to decide which Games to attend.
4. Two Australians have competed on their birthday at the Games: Alpine skier Craig Branch who finished 32nd in the men’s downhill on his 29th birthday in Torino in 2006 and cross-country skier Phil Bellingham who finished 52nd in the men’s 50km mass start on his 27th birthday in PyeongChang in 2018.
3. The oldest living Australian Winter Olympian is 98-year-old Richard Walpole, who competed in cross-country skiing at the Squaw Valley 1960 Games.
2. The Austrian press voted the Prue Acton-designed Australian uniforms at the 1976 Innsbruck opening ceremony as the most tasteless of the 37 nations competing at the Games. Abandoning the traditional green and gold for black and white vertical and horizontal stripes, they were likened to prison uniforms.
1. While recuperating from a skiing accident in Europe in 1965, Christine Smith (Alpine skiing Innsbruck 1964) taught The Beatles to ski in their hit film Help and also performed in a short skiing sequence in the movie.