Falls Creek skier Esther Bottomley celebrated her 20th birthday on February 8 in brilliant style, finishing 21st in the 1km sprint at the World Junior Cross Country Championship in Solleftea, Sweden, the best ever placing by an Australian at the World Junior titles.

Two days earlier, 18-year-old team-mate Ben Sim produced the best finish by an Australian junior male cross country skier, finishing 25th in the 30km freestyle mass start, just over 7% behind the winner, Chris Jespersen from Norway.

The 18 year old Cooma skier was in 16th place after three laps, but faded in the last three kilometres.

Daniel van der Ploeg finished 53rd after a bad start which saw him skiing most of the first half of the race by himself between packs, without any help in the wind and the new snow.

Esther was only 1.5 seconds outside qualifying for the sprint finals, and with FIS points of 74.37, has become the first Australian woman to qualify for World Cup since FIS point limits were introduced in 1995.

Under 75 points also qualifies her for entry to and free accommodation at the World Championships, to be held in Val di Fiemme, Italy, from February 18

In the men’s sprint, Ben Grimmer skied to a solid 41st place, with Ben Sim in 46th and Daniel Van der Ploeg back in 75th place.