Halfpipe snowboard rider Holly Crawford has become the latest Australian to climb onto a podium in World Cup competition, claiming a bronze medal in the opening event of the season in Valle Nevado, Chile.

Riding in her first World Cup since returning from a 20-month injury hiatus, Crawford scored an impressive 39.4 points in the final to finish behind United States star Hannah Teter on 46.4 points and three time World Champion Doriane Vidal of France on 41.2 points.

The 21-year-old Sydney rider’s top 20 per cent of field result also met the performance criteria for selection to the Australian team for Torino 2006.

Crawford’s Olympic Winter Institute team-mate Andrew Burton also posted an equal career best result in finishing in sixth place in the second men’s event in the Chilean resort.

It has been an impressive comeback for the country’s latest winter sports medallist. Crawford tore an ACL ligament while training in North America in December 2003 after riding to two top ten results in the opening months of the 2003/04 World Cup season.

She then missed the 2004/05 season with a separated shoulder injury.

“I’m really happy,” Crawford said. “I’ve been off snow for more than nineteen months, and only been back in training for a few weeks.”

“We had a couple of weeks in Perisher Blue and then two weeks in New Zealand, but I was sick for the first week of that camp, so it hasn’t been a lot of training.”

“It’s been a really hard time. I feel like I’ve been in physio for the past two years. It all got a bit much every now and then, and I got to thinking that if I got hurt again then it was all over.”

“So this is the ‘up’ I needed, I think.”

“I thought if I rode my best I was possibly a chance of a podium, but I didn’t know what the other girls would be doing.”

“I haven’t done World Cup for such a long time I wasn’t sure what they had been working on. They’ve stepped up in the time I’ve been out, but not as much as I expected.

“I’m still doing the same tricks but they’re a bit bigger now. I stuck them well today and was a bit smoother than I was in qualifying.”

“I’m most definitely aiming to add something new before Torino. We come back to Australia for a week off, then we’re back in training in Perisher and then we head to Saas Fee (in Switzerland) and I’ll certainly be working on something new.”

“I’m just really happy to get back into it and feel like I’m riding better than before.”

Although the Japanese team and several of the American women were missing from the Valle Nevado field – as well as Crawford’s Australian team-mate Torah Bright – five of the top ten women from last season did line up for the two events held to open the 2005/06 World Cup circuit.

Crawford finished in 13th place in the second event of the week, also decided yesterday, to put herself into equal sixth place on the World Cup standings on 600 points. Teter leads the standings on 2000 points after two victories, with Vidal in second on 1600 points after successive silver medal performances.

Burton is in ninth place on the men’s rankings behind Finnish rider Antti Autti.

Although they missed places in the final of both events, OWI riders Mitchell Allan and Ben Mates both took Olympic qualification results away from the South American leg, Mitchell registering two second tier qualification scores of top 60 per cent, and Mates collecting one of the three that are needed to meet the Australian Olympic Committee performance criteria.

Australian snowboard cross riders Emily Thomas, Damon Hayler and Kai Robrahn will be seeking Olympic qualification performances when they line up in two World Cup events in Valle Nevado over the weekend.

Courtesy OWI/Sportcom

For further information contact Barry White, OWI Media Manager, on 0419 104 867