LAKE Mountain is proving to be a rich vein for internationally rated cross country skiers with Olympic ambitions, and Don Valley’s Casey Wright is right up there with the best of them.
Casey is one of two Lake Mountain cross country skiers showing potential for the international arena having recently snapped up major Australian national titles.
Twenty-year old Casey and Kat Paul, 19, from Taggerty, recently won their first open women’s national titles at Perisher which Kat quickly followed up with a clean sweep at the Junior National Championships at Falls Creek on the weekend.
Casey’s younger brother Abe is also showing great promise after placing third in the juniors at Perisher.
Casey and Kat, who are ambassadors for the Lake Mountain Alpine Resort as well as training buddies and very competitive rivals, are now the hot favourites for the final open women’s national championships at Falls Creek on this weekend.
Both women have trained and competed in the United States and Europe where they held their own with excellent placings in international events in the US and Sweden.
Casey, who is currently ranked as the third top female sprinter in Australia, qualified for and competed in the 2015 Falun World Championships in Sweden where she placed third in the 5km qualifying race. She was also selected to compete in the women’s team sprint and was named in the first women’s relay in 20 years.
Kat was fifth in the US junior nationals in the skate sprint and finished in the top 10 in the 10km classic. In Europe, she was thrilled to place in the top 50 in the world junior championships.
Finn Marsland, High Performance manager for Cross Country Skiing with Ski and Snowboard Australia, said Casey and Kat, together with Abe, had made a big step forward so far this season and had shown a lot of gain from the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation program they attended in Idaho.
He said the young women’s strong form particularly would give them a timely lead-up to the 2016 world championships in Romania where Casey was hoping to compete in the under 23s and Kat in the juniors.
“They are tracking well for 2017 in Finland where we will see if they can progress to Olympic qualification standard for the Winter Olympics in South Korea,” he added.
In the 2015 Australian Open Championships and FIS-New Zealand Cup at Perisher on 25 and 26 July, Casey and Kat were the first women home respectively in the open classic and freestyle sprint events.
In a clear show of their dominance, and despite the blizzard conditions, they were also runners-up to each other. Their wins were the first time either had won an open national title.
They are now the hot favourites for the final open women’s national championships to be held at Falls Creek on 15 and 16 August.
Scott Gamble, manager at Lake Mountain Alpine Resort, said Casey and Kat were wonderful ambassadors for the sport of cross country skiing and Lake Mountain where they first learned to ski, almost before they could walk.
Both young women live and breathe cross country skiing and all the fun and friendships they derive from being with like-minded people, striving to achieve their athletic potential.
While their schedules are relentless, they both agree they wouldn’t want it any other way.
“Those blue bird days skiing on top of the Bogong High Plains make it all worthwhile for me”, said Casey while Kat added: “I hate the cold, so it can sometimes be an effort to train when it is snowing, wet and windy but, you make it work and when I am done, I feel great.”
