Skiing: Change of course for Olympic hopeful

Michelle Greig (centre) racing at Grindelwald, Switzerland, scene of one of her two top 20 World Cup finishes. Photo / Supplied

Michelle Greig's progress towards a place in the Winter Olympics early next year has combined elements of both a traditional and an unconventional route.

She was on skis at three, racing from about 10 and good enough to make national development teams, win New Zealand titles at giant slalom and Super G, and get to the cusp of the Torino Olympics three years ago. So far, so normal.

Now think of an athlete who decides, after years running the 1500m, that they rather fancy the 200m sprint instead, and then find they're not half bad at it either.

That was Greig a couple of years ago. Since then the bubbly Queenstown 19-year-old, known to all as Mitchey, has fulfilled the criteria to contest the new skier cross event in Vancouver next February.

All she's got to do is survive the coming season, keep up her form, stay fit, and win the approval of the New Zealand Olympic Committee selectors. And she's done everything right so far.

The critical moment in steering Greig in another direction on the piste was missing out in Torino. She was close but missed out. She wasn't impressed, and here's where things took an interesting twist.

"What I loved about alpine was the speed, but I thought I wasn't going to get where I wanted to be," she said.

So she took a few months off to consider her future. Then ...

"I was surfing the internet. I heard skier cross was a new Olympic sport. I didn't really know what it was, so I You Tubed it, as you do, and it's speed pretty much, high speed, lots of jumps which is what I loved about Super G and downhill.

"Also it involved four to six people (at the same time) so it had everything I loved about alpine all in one race. I thought, 'That looks pretty cool'.

"Four days later I was on a plane and flew to the United States. My parents said 'If you want to give it a go, it's now or never'."

That was two seasons ago and she hasn't looked back. "I wanted to do something more fun-loving and different. This has the freestyle chill side to it, but also the serious side."

Greig landed at Telluride in Colorado, unknown, inexperienced, but possessing a bit of cheek and nerve served her well.

"I managed to weasel a spot in a pro tour," she said. "I just portrayed the image of a crazy Kiwi who wanted to give it a shot and would they let me have a go.

"I managed to get a wildcard spot. I had no idea what I was doing, didn't know how to do starts, anything. But I finished up winning prize money for the first time in my life."

She rapidly progressed from being a newbie to a contender. After just six races, she sat at the giddy heights of No18 in the world.

Last season, her second and based in Tahoe, Nevada, Greig estimated she spent 170 hours in a plane criss-crossing the globe in pursuit of races. "It was insane, pretty ridiculous." Still, the reward came in the form of fulfilling the NZOC criteria of two top 20 spots in World Cup events, 14th at the Olympic test event at Cypress mountain, about 40 minutes from Vancouver, and 19th at Grindelwald, Switzerland.

At present, Greig sits 29th and needs to stay inside the top 35 through the early World Cup races in Italy, Austria and France next December and January. She is "feeling pretty confident" about her Olympic ambitions.

She was a slightly disappointing 24th at the world champs in Japan this year. It was a tougher field than the Olympics, with no absences through the quota system of racers per nation, which applies at the Games.

Greig reckons the Cypress course is the longest course she's done, "and probably the best. It's super long. Most have seven or eight features; Cypress has 16". Think a BMX or motocross course and you get the idea, designers setting up obstacles to test the abilities of the skiers. The challenge is making the top two of your heat to progress through quarter, semi and final races. Nerves are needed as well as considerable skill. But Greig doesn't seem the type who'll die wondering.

WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

* Skier cross is a first-time Olympic discipline which falls under the general category of free skiing. Others include moguls, aerials and the half pipe. Of those, only the half pipe is not on the Olympic programme in Vancouver next February.
* Skiers race in groups of four or six down a steep, angled course, similar to BMX racing. The run time varies between about 50 and 90 seconds, according to the length and difficulty of the course.
* The Olympic field will be 35 - with the bottom three dropping out after a timed qualifying run. They whizz down a course including about 15 features, such as jumps, banked corners, ridges and rolling turns.
* The final composition of the Olympic field will be decided over World Cup races in January.