By Callum Ludwig
Don Valley cross-country skier Casey Wright brought home the goods with a third-place finish at the Kangaroo Hoppet long-distance ski race.
She came in behind Americans Jessie Diggins and Julia Kern; the former an Olympic Gold medallist and the latter a four-time U.S. National Champion and World Cup Silver and Bronze medallist.
Wright said she felt really really happy after the race.
“It’s a mass start event, so everyone heads off at the same time. The top two women were the Americans, one of them’s the current world champion, and the other one is a World Cup podium skier, so I wasn’t really expecting to be able to stay with them throughout the race. But I managed to ski with another Australian girl, Kat Paul for pretty much the whole race until the last couple of kilometres when I pulled away and took third overall and the first Australian woman,” she said.
“It’s probably one of my favourite events to do on the racing calendar, it’s just a really awesome community event and always something most of Australia’s skiers hold close to their heart.”
The race was held on Saturday 27 August and Wright finished with a time of 1:46.02.2. She was just over 14 minutes behind Diggins and just under 11 minutes behind Kern.
Wright said it was her third time finishing in third place at the event.
“It was just a perfect day with weather and snow conditions, and the result just put the icing on top of the cake,” she said.
The Kangaroo Hoppet is Australia’s premier long-distance cross-country ski race and a member of the prestigious Wordloppet series of popular international cross country ski events. The race is a 42km course around Falls Creek with competitors taking on two laps around the Sun Valley loop, Watchbed Creek, The Paralyser, Heathy Spur and Pauls Track.
Wright said now she is just evaluating where she’s at and what her skiing future will look like.
“For the moment, I’m just going to finish the season at Falls Creek and enjoy the spring snow and conditions we have up here at the moment,” she said.
“Especially after the last Olympics, I was really happy to be able to put down another solid race after exploring some other pathways over the last couple of months, so it’s nice to know that I still have some speed and stamina left in my tank.”
Wright was the second-placed woman under 30 in the event, with only Kern ahead of her.
