Jason Begg-Smith is the Ski and Snowboard Australia Snowsports Athlete of the Year for 2004/05. The annual awards were announced at a gala dinner at the Sofitel Hotel, Melbourne, on Saturday April 30.
The competition for the premier award of the night was very tight, with Begg-Smith and aerials skier Lydia Ierodiaconou - both ranked number two in the world - the key contenders.
In the end the award went to 20-year-old Begg-Smith, who as well as finishing runner up in the World Cup last season also claimed a bronze medal at the world championships.
He had started the season ranked 18th in the world, with only 13 World Cup events under his belt, so his rise to world number two has been one of the fastest in the sport¡¯s history.
Ierodiaconou won the Outstanding Achievement of the Year award for her back to back gold medals at Mt Buller in September.
Halfpipe snowboard star Torah Bright won the Junior Athlete of the Year award, while Begg-Smith¡¯s coach Steve Desovich was named Coach of the Year.
In the Media Award category, Herald Sun photographer Trevor Pinder won the Best Photograph of the Year award for his action shots of Ierodiaconou at Mt Buller.
The Electronic Media award went to the Seven Network for its coverage of the Mt Buller World Cup.and the Print Media award was collected by Daily Telegraph journalist Arthur Stanley.
Keynote speaker at the event was The Honorable Rod Kemp, Minister for the Arts and Sport. Awards were presented by Mark Adams from Mark Adams Real Estate, Leanne Sharry from T-Board Australia, Secretary General of the Australian Olympic Committee Craig Phillips, Chairman of the OWI Geoff Henke and the Seven Network¡¯s Ian Johnson.
The full award details:
Snowsports Athlete of the Year
Snowboard Athlete of the Year - Torah Bright
Freestyle Athlete of the Year - Jason Begg-Smith
Cross Country Athlete of the Year - Paul Murray
Alpine Athlete of the Year - Luke Deane
Snowsports Athlete of the Year - Jason Begg-Smith
Junior Athlete of the Year (Sponsored by T-Board Australia)
Freestyle Junior Athlete of the Year - Ramone Cooper
Cross Country Junior Athlete of the Year - Ben Sim
Alpine Junior Athlete of the Year - Katya Crema
Snowboard Junior Athlete of the Year - Torah Bright
Junior Athlete of the Year - Torah Bright.
Coach of the Year
Snowboard Nomination Ben Wordsworth
Freestyle Nomination Steve Desovich
Cross Country Nomination Finn Marsland
Alpine Nomination Michael Branch
Coach of the Year - Steve Desovich
Outstanding Achievement of the Year
Snowboard Nomination Andrew Burton
Freestyle Nomiration Lydia lerodiaconou
Cross Country Nomination Paul Murray
Alpine Nomination Luke Deane
Outstanding Achievement of the Year ¨C Lydia Ierodiaconou
Club of the Year (Sponsored by Mark Adams Real Estate)
Cross Country Club of the Year - Birkebeiner Nordic Ski Club
Snowboard Club of the Year - Perisher Snowboard Squad
Freestyle Club of the Year - Team Buller
Alpine Club of the Year - Mount Buller Race Club
School Snowsports Club of the Year (Sponsored by Mark Adams Real Estate)
Victorian Finalist - Bright P-12 College
NSW Finalist - SCECGS Redlands
School Snowsports Club of the Year - Bright P-12
Media awards
Print Media contribution - Arthur Stanley, Daily Telegraph
Best photograph of the year - Trevor Pinder, Herald Sun
Electronic media contribution - Seven Network
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Jason Begg-Smith is the Olympic hero of Australia in recent days even though he happens to be Canadian. His nickname is the Iceman and his golden moment was when he won the gold medal in skiing at the Winter Olympic Games in Torino in 2006.
His initial footing phase in Australia was quite difficult. In his early years he worked at skiing just so that he could qualify to represent Australia. He spent three whole years doing this to prove that he had what it took to make Australia a winner at the Olympics. He worked at becoming technically sound in all aspects of skiing by attending training programs in Australia and he proved himself the best in Olympics by bagging the gold medal and thus earning the title as Iceman. All of that hard work really did pay off for him and for the country of Australia. Another remarkable aspect of his achievement is this gold bagged by him is Australia's first gold to be won in this category. This event proved to be a great moment for him as well as his country.
His style is to make a lot of twists and turns in his show but all with total control. He was born in Vancouver and he learned skiing along with the rest of his family and became technically strong in this profession, which helped him achieve his great moment of success. He performed a brilliant back flip, which earned the title as the golden boy of the slopes. His performance was perfect and error free, which earned him the high score that won him the victorious and glorious moment of winning gold in the Winter Olympic Games at Torino.
This achievement is a milestone in Begg-Smith¡¯s career not only because he bagged gold for his country but because he was an inspiration for his competitor, an Australian teammate named as Fisher. Fisher won the twelfth place in this show and stated that this was his best performance and he could not have done it without the inspiration of Jason Begg-Smith.
Smith knew that he always wanted to win the gold in the Olympics right from the age of eight when he watched a Frenchman named Jean Luc Brassard win gold in his Olympic event. This inspiration was the root of his success and his determination.
There was talk that he would become as successful as he is now even before he got to the Olympics. For example in 2003 and 2004 he skied for Australia and he showed that he had the ability to represent his new country on a large scale, a world level. The more he won the more determined he was to keep winning and to keep proving himself over and over again. And as he pushed himself to new levels he conquered them every single time without fail.
He had many successes in his professional career and to name a couple there is the win in 2003-2004 when he won eighteenth in world cup ranking, and another when bagged the bronze medal in Freestyle world championship in Finland and really the list just goes on and on. But none of these events compare to winning the gold in Torino. The fact that he won the first gold for Australia in this category is just the icing on the cake.
Jason Begg-Smith did not always compete for Australia. There was a time when he and his brother Jason skied for Canada but as that team did not allow for them to balance their skiing with their other responsibilities such as school they moved on. So they both left to go to Australia as instructed by Canadian Coach Steve Desovich. This worked out well for Dale and because of his parents background he got dual citizenship and joined the Australian Team and this is the place where Dale did a record and bought fame to his new country Australia.
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( 2.8 / 538 )
Dale Begg-Smith has become the first Australian man to win a world championship freestyle skiing medal, taking bronze in moguls in Ruka, Finland, overnight.
The result continued a record-breaking year in which the 20-year-old skier made three World Cup podiums and finished in second place on the Cup end of season standings.
It is also the second men¡¯s world championship medal in any skiing discipline and the first since Malcolm Milne won downhill bronze in Val Gardena in 1970.
Begg-Smith qualified in fourth place behind a Finnish trio of Janne Lahtela, Sami Mustonen and Mikko Ronkainen, with pre-race favourite Jeremy Bloom of the United States ¨C the runaway World Cup champion - out of finals contention after a major mistake on the bottom jump of the course.
In the final, the Australian started with a perfect score on his top jump, earned the highest turns score from the judges and also recorded the fastest time down the course.
But a bad landing on the bottom jump cost him valuable points, and he went into third place behind American Nathan Roberts and Canadian Marc-Andre Moreau.
With the three home-town heroes to come, no-one in the fanatical 5000-strong crowd gave Begg-Smith any chance of retaining a place on the podium.
But all three faltered, making major mistakes on their way down the 218 metre Battery Run course, the 2002 Olympic champion Lahtela producing the best result at eighth.
For Begg-Smith, taking a medal at a world championship was definitely more significant than his World Cup success this year.
¡°I think world champs are more important, ¡° he said. ¡°They¡¯re once every two years, and there¡¯s no question that everyone who comes to world championships wants to do well.¡±
¡°On World Cup, someone like Janne (Lahtela) may not care all that much because he has won so many World Cups, but definitely everyone wants to do their best once every two years at the world championships.¡±
¡°I started out conservative this season and it¡¯s paid off as the season has gone on. Just concentrating on putting down good runs allowed me to pick up the speed gradually, feeling confident because I knew I had those good runs behind me.¡±
¡°Before I was trying to go fast right away, and if you do that you¡¯re not confident enough that you can do it every time.¡±
Not for the first time this season, Olympic Winter Institute Head Moguls Coach Steve Desovich was astonished at what his star athlete had accomplished.
¡°When you look at where we were 12 months ago and where we are now, the progress has been enormous,¡± Desovich said.¡±
¡°Today was a tremendous performance. The landing on the bottom air was the only thing that was sub-par today on both runs, and that¡¯s what may have ultimately cost him doing better.¡±
¡°He has a tendency to play it very safe, so to see the speed he had in the qualification round you knew right away he was focussed and that he could produce something special.¡±
¡°His top jump in the final was a perfect score from both judges, and to have the highest turns score and virtually the highest speed ¨C that¡¯s very impressive.¡±
¡°If you had said at the start of the season that he would be top ten at the end of the year I would have been very, very happy.¡±
¡°So to finish second on World Cup and then pick up a medal at the world championships, well it¡¯s been an incredible year for him.¡±
Of the other Australians in the field, Nick Fisher finished in 23rd place in 23.16 points, Michael Robertson in 26th place on 22.99 points and Jason Begg-Smith in 34th place on 21.53 points.
In the women¡¯s event, the sole Australian competitor, Manuela Berchtold, finished in 23rd place on 18.88 points after problems landing her first jump.
United States skier Hannah Kearney took the gold medal on 26.40 points from Nikola Sudova of the Czech Republic on 26.31 and Margarita Marbler of Austria.
The World Championships dual moguls event will be contested on Sunday
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Mogul skier Dale Begg-Smith has strengthened his claims as one of Australia's hottest medal hopes at Turin and will spearhead the country's largest ski and snowboard representation at a Winter Olympic Games.
Begg-Smith capped an outstanding few days when he won a third World Cup round, triumphing at Lake Placid, New York, where his second victory last Friday elevated him to world No.1.
The win sent him 109 points clear of his nearest rival Alexandre Bilodeau of Canada in the World Cup standings with 405 points.
The Canadian-born 21-year-old's results are a major boost for Ski and Snowboard Australia (SSA), which finalised its team for Turin by including former world champion Jacqui Cooper, who won the fourth and final place on the aerial ski team.
Selectors gave their discretionary pick to Cooper ahead of Laine Cole and Bree Munro to join automatic selections Alisa Camplin, the 2002 Olympic champion, Lydia Ierodiaconou and Liz Gardner.
The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) is scheduled to name its full Games team, expected to number about 40, on Wednesday.
For the first time, SSA has been able to nominate more than one athlete in every discipline - alpine skiing, cross country skiing, freestyle skiing and snowboarding - with 25 set to compete in Turin.
SSA chief executive Michael Kennedy was delighted at the steps forward from four years ago.
"We sent five athletes to Salt Lake City 2002 who had won World Cup medals, but this team contains nine athletes who have made World Cup podiums," Kennedy said.
"In the four years prior to the 2002 Games, our athletes had won 35 World Cup medals, whereas in the past four years leading up to (Turin) we have collected 54 medals."
Begg-Smith, who came out to Australia six years ago with his older brother Jason and stood out of competitive skiing for three years to qualify for Australia, has confirmed his place as a strong medal hope in Turin in one of the most competitive sports.
Olympic Winter Institute of Australia CEO Geoff Lipshut was delighted with Begg-Smith's form, which has now extended to three consecutive winning runs.
"It's fantastic, he's doing it when it counts at the moment, he understands the game and he's got good skills," Lipshut said.
"He is very strong mentally, and when you qualify first in an event like this, you're the last person to ski, so you have to watch everyone else and then know what you have to beat and withstand all that pressure, and not everyone does that.
Mogul skiing is traditionally dominated by North Americans, and Lipshut said an Olympic medal in the event would rank among Australia's greatest sporting achievements.
"Dale is right up there, he's a medal hope with 12 others - there's him, four Americans, four Canadians and four Finns, and a medal would be an amazing, because this is one of the tough events and it's a tough business," he said.
"In events like this the US are usually so strong they can go one-two-three-four and any one of 12 of their skiers could be Olympic medallists, so it's a renewed sense of confidence for us and vindication for our system, our coaching and our talent."
Dale Begg-Smith was an emerging skier when he arrived in Jindabyne via Melbourne about six years ago, and spent most of his time becoming technically proficient through Australian training programs as he and Jason, now 25, stood out of competitive skiing while waiting for their Australians citizenship to be processed.
Athletes nominated to the AOC by SSA selection committee: Aerial skiing - Alisa Camplin, Jacqui Cooper, Liz Gardner, Lydia Ierodiaconou; Alpine skiing - AJ Bear (super G), Craig Branch (downhill, combined), Jono Brauer (slalom, combined), Brad Wall (giant slalom); Cross-Country Skiing - Esther Bottomley (sprint), Clare-Louise Brumley (pursuit, 15km classic), Paul Murray (sprint); Mogul Skiing - Manuela Berchtold, Dale Begg-Smith, Jason Begg-Smith, Nick Fisher, Michael Robertson; Snowboard - Torah Bright (halfpipe), Holly Crawford (halfpipe), Mitchell Allan (halfpipe), Andrew Burton (halfpipe), Ben Mates (halfpipe), Emanuel Oppliger (parallel giant slalom), Johanna Shaw (parallel giant slalom), Damon Hayler (snowboard cross), Emily Thomas (snowboard cross).
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