Skiing: Downhill race towards Olympics

Ben Griffin is back from an enforced break. Photo / Sarah Ivey

The next time Ben Griffin steps on to a trampoline expect him to be taking things gently.

No more big, booming triple flips, that's for sure. On the last occasion New Zealand's leading alpine skier set foot on one, he broke his neck.

But Vancouver and the Winter Olympics were on the horizon, so the 22-year-old from Ohakune wasn't about to let something as trifling as that end the dream.

He and fellow leading Olympic contender, Queenstown's Tim Cafe, are counting down to the Australasian season starting late next month where there is the chance of securing sufficient points to warrant an automatic selection for the Games, subject to New Zealand Olympic Committee confirmation.

Alternatively, they will aim to gather sufficient points with a subsequent trip to Europe, or at least enough to fit into the second tier, called the discretionary criteria.

NZOC selectors are known for taking a tough line, so it won't be easy.

Put New Zealand and Olympics in a word association game and, depending on your age and sporting interest, you might respond with Snell or Halberg, the Munich rowing eight, Ferguson and MacDonald, Todd and Tait, Loader or Ulmer.

The point is all won gold at summer Games. So how about New Zealand, Olympics and Coberger?

Because at the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, southeast France, Annelise Coberger came within a whisker of winning what would have ranked as New Zealand's most unlikely Olympic gold.

The Canterbury skier finished with the silver, the first Olympic medal by a Southern Hemisphere winter Olympian.

Winter Games events have broadened. This time, New Zealand have Games contenders in a range of sports on snow and ice.

But alpine skiing is the purest, the longest-established of the snow and ice disciplines and Griffin and Cafe head New Zealand's bid to be on the starting gate next February.

Griffin, born in Wellington, has lived round the Ruapehu area most of his life. He grew up in Whakapapa Village, began skiing at about 4 "and have the skis on every year since, with the exception of last year". We'll come to that.

"Dad always reminds me how when I was 8 or 9 and just getting into ski programmes they ran up there [Ruapehu]. I'd always be up at the crack of dawn, pulling him out of bed to drive me up the hill - and often I wouldn't turn up at the end of the day."

As his skiing developed, he began specialising in his favoured giant slalom - "until this last northern winter I did everything because you can, but you reach a level where you need to specialise.

"Then I decided to concentrate on my strengths. You can't be good in four events, it's just too difficult. So it's the giant and Super G now."

In the northern winter of 2007-08, Griffin was in the New Zealand team which headed to Europe.

He recorded his first European FIS win and raced in his first World Cup, the elite circuit, in Slovenia. It was, he recalled, "a pretty big learning curve".

All in all, it was a good campaign. Back home and training with the New Zealand snowboard and freestyle teams in May, it was time for sharpening the aerial awareness.

"I got a bit carried away with one of the trampolines, trying to do a triple front flip. I came out second best," Griffin said. That is, he'd managed about 2 of the triple flip.

"I heard a bit of a crunch. It was a little bit uncomfortable, but it didn't hurt at all."

He had suffered a burst fracture of his C7. Bone had been pushed into his spinal canal. Griffin was told he'd avoided permanent damage by less than a millimetre.

He spent three months in a brace before an operation in September and three more months in a Philadelphia collar. Once given the all clear, it was back into training.

The one good thing to come out of the layoff for Griffin was the chance to refine his technique or, as he put it, relearning how to ski - "it had been so long since I skied, it was a good opportunity to dump some bad habits".

Progress was rapid and he was back on the piste in Europe from mid-February.

The trip produced a pleasing third placing in a high-quality field at an FIS giant slalom race in Kutai, Austria, solid evidence that he was on the right track.

Skiers accrue qualification points with performances on the various circuits.

The World Cup is the premier level, with the Europa and Nor Am Cups - or Continental Cups - the next step down and FIS A and B events below that.

The better the field, the more points on offer. Before his injury, Griffin was ranked No 137. Cafe, who won his first FIS race at Mt Hutt last season, is in the 200s.

That's not as far off the top 80 as it might sound. Each nation is restricted to four athletes per discipline. The best European nations like Austria, Switzerland and Sweden have large blocs of skiers within the elite group, so there will be tears when the final fields are confirmed.

"The difference between No 137 andNo 80 is about four FIS points, whichin a race is maybe half a second," Griffin said.

"It's very jammed at the top in terms of the number of people within those points values. So getting down to No 80 is both easy and difficult.

"Two good races where you win - and in top-quality fields - and you'd done it; but finish third a couple of times, close but not close enough, might not make it."

There's another thing; if a skier qualifies through his, or her, performances in Australasia, that's one thing; but as Griffin put it, "if you do it while racing in Europe that says something about your skiing".

The pair will compete in New Zealand until around the start of September.

Plans are fluid at present, depending on results, but the first World Cup of the next season, in Solden, Austria, from October 24-25, is in their sights.

So what are their prospects? Griffin believes both are very capable of getting there.

He has an understanding of what the NZOC expects and added that Cafe, 21 and about 20 points outside the discretionary criteria, is "nipping at my heels in terms of results, so hopefully he can get some really strong result this season and that will be enough to get him in there".

Two New Zealanders in the giant slalom Olympic field? Now there's real progress.

EYES ON VANCOUVER

* New Zealanders are aiming to qualify for the Winter Olympics in a mix of disciplines - alpine skiing, including giant slalom and cross-country, free skiing, skier cross, biathlon, skeleton, speed skating, both short and long track, and snowboarding.

* Athletes will be attempting to secure qualification over the remainder of this year. The bulk of the squad is expected to be named by mid-January.

* The Vancouver Olympics run from February 12-28 next year. New Zealand had 18 athletes at the 2006 Games in Torino, 11 in Salt Lake City four years earlier.