Harry Laidlaw is an extremely talented skier who won selection as Australia’s alpine male representative following a strong domestic season in 2011. His strong results in the freestyle skiing discipline of ski cross also meant he was a strong contender for this discipline also.
Greta Small is currently the stand-out Australian alpine skier, junior and senior. She is based in Pitztal, Austria for almost nine months of the year. When she is in Australia, Perth is called home but she still manages to compete on the Australian snow fields during the winter.
Sixteen-year-old Snowy Mountains Grammar School biathlete Lachlan Porter will race in the men’s 7.5km sprint and 10km pursuit over two days in Innsbruck.
Victorian Alex Gibson has been skiing since he was three-years-old. Gibson is a member of the National Junior Team and placed second and third respectively at the under-20 Australian Pursuit and Classic Sprint Championships.
Lucy Glanville has been the number one Australian Junior cross country skier for the past four years. Her coach is the Olympic Team coach Nick Almoukov and Glanville spends part of the year living and training with Nick and his son Alex Almoukov (2010 Olympian) in Cooma.
Chantelle Kerry is skating in the tracks of her mother Monica MacDonald who represented Australia in figure skating at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. She has enjoyed consistent success as Australia’s leading junior figure skater, winning the national junior ladies title in 2010 and 2011.
Claudia Leggett began skiing on a family holiday when she was seven years old, and then started racing through the Australian Interschools Competition in 2008. In addition to alpine skiing, Claudia also competes in the freestyle discipline of ski cross and will contest the head-to-head race in Innsbruck in 2012.
Jack Millar first got on skis at the age of three and commenced Winter Sports Club in 2001. In the coming years he was identified for the Winter Sports Development Program and has skied competitively every season. He will compete in ski cross alongside Harry Laidlaw at the Innsbruck Games.
Australia's only competitor in ski halfpipe at the Innsbruck 2012 Winter Youth Olympics will be teenager Thomas Waddell. Born in Cooma, Thomas was skiing the slopes of the NSW Snowy Mountains from a young age and has been riding slopestyle for four years and has recently taken up halfpipe.
Sharnita Crompton will represent Australia in the Ice Hockey Skills Challenge at Innsbruck 2012. From the NSW Central Coast Sharnita plays ice hockey for the Newcastle Northstars. She was the youngest member of the Australian Team that competed at the 2011 World Championships, winning a silver medal in division three.
The Individual Ice Hockey Skills Challenge will be one of the highlights of Innsbruck 2012. Victorian Sam Hodic was outstanding in the international qualifier and is training hard for the podium. He is only 15 but the men are on notice and his dream of playing professionally overseas is on target.
Townsville local Alex Ferlazzo took up the sport of luge in 2010 and has made serious tracks in the sport - producing four solid results at the 2011 Junior World Cup to earn selection to the Winter Youth Olympic Team.
Alex Fitch began snowboarding in 2004 when her parents hired her a snowboard on a family holiday. Inspired by her brothers who had been snowboarding for years, she snowboarded for a week each year until she was 13. Alex is going to compete in slopestyle and halfpipe in Innsbruck.
