Aerial skiing coach Rachel Johnson has become the first female to win the VICSPORT Coach of the Year award, recognised in the 2003 Victorian sports awards for her work with the Ski & Snowboard Australia/VIS Aerial Skiing team.

Johnson follows a long line of male winners of the award including Cathy Freeman’s coach Peter Fortune, Australian athletic coach Chris Wardlaw and Oarsome Foursome rowing coach Noel Donaldson.

The award is an emphatic endorsement of the hugely successful aerial skiing development program jointly operated by Ski & Snowboard Australia and the Victorian Institute of Sport.

Under Johnson’s tutelage, former elite stream gymnasts Lydia Ierodiaconou and Liz Gardner progressed from beginner skiers to world top ten aerialists in a little over three years.

Ierodiaconou finished the 2002/2003 World Cup season as the number two ranked woman in the world, right behind world champion and Olympic gold medallist Alisa Camplin.

Gardner is currently ranked tenth in the world, and the Australian Flying Kangaroos team claimed the world number one female team ranking at the end of the season.

In the four years that the program has been operating, Johnson has groomed a number of women to take up places in the Australian team alongside Camplin and fellow world champion Jacqui Cooper.

Following the development path charted by Ierodiaconou and Gardner, the current crop of athletes in Johnson’s charge include 1998 Australian Commonwealth Games gymnastics gold medallist Trudy McIntosh and her Sydney 2000 team-mate Melinda Cleland.

All four will be competing in the Alpine Exposure World Aerials at Mt Buller in September.

Johnson was a level 2 gymnastics coach for a decade, and has also worked as a ski instructor at Mt Buller for several years prior to taking up her head coach role with the SAL/VIS program.

“I’m delighted to receive the award, but I really see it as an award for the program,” Johnson said.

“It’s the best aerials program operating in the world at the moment, and it has been able to propel two women into the top ten faster than any other freestyle nation.”

“It’s based on very sound concepts and has very well designed development pathways that are linked into the Olympic Winter Institute, and with the strong government support and corporate support we’ve gained, we have the opportunity to deliver on Australia’s Winter Olympic ambitions.”

“We have been able to involve some very talented young women in the program , but their gymnastic talent is not enough – it is the program that is able to take that talent and direct it into successful aerials skills and performance.”

“That’s something we’re really proud of.”

The Ski & Snowboard Australia/VIS supported program is also backed by Alpine Exposure, Mt Buller and Bolle.