Torah Bright stands by photo of breastfeeding son while doing a handstand

Australia’s most successful Winter Olympian Torah Bright has defended the photo she posted breastfeeding her son upside down while doing a handstand.

Sleepless nights with a teething five-month-old baby led to the now infamous photo
of a near-nude Torah Bright breastfeeding her son upside down, while doing a headstand.

Complaining to her older sister Rowena about teething, the Olympic gold-medal snowboarder was exhausted from being up at night with son Flow — when her sister told her to look at life from a different angle.

“That’s how all of this came about — it had been 10 days straight and I was saying ‘I am so sleep-deprived, I don’t think I can take much more’,” Bright told Insider exclusively this week.

“And she said ‘look what I just saw — it all passes, it all changes, just hang in there. Plus, if I could go back there, I would do this’. And she sent me this picture of this beautifully orchestrated woman in the forest doing an upside down headstand with her baby attached to her breast!

“So it was my sister being my cheerleader — she was like ‘hang in there, everything changes constantly, and if I was you I would try this’, so I literally did.

“You have to be up during the days and hanging with your babe but I got in the backyard, did a handstand and went to see if that little boy would attach himself to my boob in that primal instinct, and he did.”

Torah Bright’s breastfeeding picture which got people talking. Picture: Supplied

Australia’s most successful Winter Olympian, the 34-year-old wanted to celebrate Mother’s Day by posting an ode to her son with a series of images, including the headstand shot.

It was subsequently shared by News Corp’s body+soul, attracting criticism for being unrealistic and unrepresentative of mothers.

Despite the negativity, the northern beaches mother unapologetically stands by the image, declaring it one of incredible, primal beauty.

“I actually can’t believe it happened because the photo was shared on body+soul in a really positive light — they just said ‘obsessed with this photo #wonderwoman #womeninsport’ so it was nothing about breastfeeding — it was just saying this is cool, she’s an athlete and a woman,” Bright continued.

“So I guess it was just the tone of the comments that started coming through and it turned into this thread.

“I didn’t actually see it — I was down at the park playing with my kid and my friend said ‘how are you doing with the comments?’ and I hadn’t seen anything.

“Then I read it and I was still fine, I went on with my day. Then I was like ‘whoa’ it makes me sad that everyone has made it something that it’s not and comparing people — there were comments like that’s an unrealistic representation of a body, that’s not normalising breastfeeding … it wasn’t anything like I’ve got something to prove, it was honestly I can’t let this pass without making comment.

“So I did an Insta story and there was no more thought — I didn’t feel I had to defend myself, it doesn’t matter because people are going to think what they are going to think — but I didn’t want to minimise my experience and the joy I generate from my motherhood journey to make someone else feel better.

“And in no way did body+soul or myself say you’re not a Wonder Woman if you’re not a mother or if you aren’t breastfeeding — women need to build back that village of support and growth.

Snowboarder Torah Bright with her now 10-month-old baby, Flow. Picture: Tim Hunter

“There is no right or wrong way to do it, clearly. I have friends who have very different parenting styles and we honour each other.

“We cheer each other on.

“I guess I’m so blessed because I have my family, my mother, my siblings where we are that way with each other.

“But also, in my sport of snowboarding, that sisterhood is what I felt we did.

“Even though we competed against each other fiercely, it was this sisterhood because the whole sport rising meant more than all of us individually.”

Through the critics though, also came overwhelming support, she tells Insider while breastfeeding Flow, who is now 10-months-old.

“There will always be opposing views and opinions and that’s what makes the world beautiful and I think we have to honour them all,” she said.

“You don’t have to like me or like what I’m doing … the world is so interesting now and we just have to be in love and motherhood is the most beautiful thing and there’s nothing to judge or compare about.

“Do no harm, take no shit and that’s where I’m at — no one was being harmed, it was the most purest most beautiful thing … pure primal instinct between mother and baby.”

Bright with her husband Angus Thomson and son Flow.

Something else that made that headstand special for Bright was the fact it was a significant milestone in her journey to recovery, post-birth.

Having Flow at her northern beaches home, she suffered abdominal separation that left her barely able to lift her chest for six weeks post-partum.

“For weeks I was like ‘I feel broken’, I couldn’t lift my chest up and I didn’t know what was wrong,” she explained.

“At the top of my ribs I had three-plus fingers’ separation and I couldn’t support myself.

“So like any injury, it’s rehab and you treat it with kindness and work away at it and it all comes back together. So when he was five months old that was a milestone in my recovery because I didn’t know if I would be able to do it.

“To me, it represented so much more than what people saw.”

Her husband, fellow snowboarder Angus Thomson took the photo — a pose she held for ‘just long enough’ and hasn’t done since.

“Although he was five months old then — I might have to do it again,” Bright laughed.

Now, mothers from around the world are following suit, recreating the photo and sharing them in breastfeeding groups on social media.

“Mothers have to be so many things and how incredible is it that your body sustained this little life that lives on nothing but breastmilk or formula for months and months and it grows and grows and grows … it’s incredible and I don’t think we should have to cover them or cover ourselves,” she said.

Flow is a happy, content adventurous baby, who in his 10 short months has already been hiking, snowboarding, surfing and skateboarding. He’s a natural — and very busy, just like his parents.

Torah Bright breastfeeds while skateboarding. Picture: Instagram

“I was thinking I would have this cuddly little baby but he is so busy taking in the world and exploring things,” she said.

“We go surfing — in Palm Beach there is a great little area that has these mellow little waves and when the sandbanks are right it’s just perfect, just above knee high and he just lays on the surfboard and we cruise him out over the ripples and we lay on it like a boogie board and surf in and he loves it.

“We go to the basketball courts and we skateboard and he sits on it, scooting himself around.

“We go dancing in the rain and he loves playing music — it’s all about giving him experiences now.

“He was 10 weeks old when we went to Thredbo last year. I wouldn’t take him on the mountain because you can’t control people around you, but I was very keen to get on the snow with him and we did a little touring mission outside of Thredbo Resort.

“So we hiked up with snow shoes. It was Father’s Day and I had my snowboard on my backpack and him on my front carrier the whole walk up. We got up the top and it was time for a nappy change and a feed.

“Then I put him back on the carrier on my front, strapped into my board and we just cruised down in between the gum trees — it was so beautiful.

“And every time I stopped, he would get fussy — I think he remembers the sensation and maybe even the sound because I was snowboarding up until about 22 weeks with him in my belly.

“He was soothed by the motion and sensation and sound.”

Along with five brothers and sisters, Bright was raised on a farm 15 minutes out of Cooma until she was two, when her parents sold up and moved to town because the drought in the 1980s.

Torah Bright’s son Flow has already been to the ski fields. Picture: Supplied/Nine

Her father retrained as an irrigation specialist, which he remains today, as does her mother, a nurse in aged care and alternate healer.

“I hit the jackpot with some pretty awesome parents who at the time probably went against the conventional way of things and just forged their own path on life and the best methods of raising kids and how to feed them,” Bright said.

“My mum was 30 years ahead of the times because she was into this energetic healing and organic farming … when the sheep were being shorn she used to get wool and spin it and make sweaters for us — she was like Wonder Woman with five children.”

At 14, Bright travelled the world snowboarding and worked hard to make it her profession — something she did surrounded by her “snowboarding sisterhood”.

“My Roxy teammates were 10 and 15 years my senior but they just took me under their wing and I was around older, wiser women a lot,” she said.

“I have always been able to sit and listen and hear their stories and learn — there is power in sharing stories and so much wisdom to be shared by those who have walked the path before you.”

Bright built a life in the US and lived in Utah, doing what she loved every day for 14 years — and never thought she would call Australia home again.

“Until I met Angus … and we all know how that ends,” she laughed.

“We met in 2014, he was the marketing director at Thredbo at the time and I was becoming the Thredbo ambassador. It just happened but it was so beautiful and we got married a little over a year later and here we are.

“I can’t rave enough how much I love this motherhood journey.

“He’s been a great little babe … but we’ve had some long, hard nights — I’m in the middle of teething, so he’s waking every hour or so, I’m lucky if I get a few hours sleep before he wakes up.

“I think I have just been prepared to roll with it, with all the crappy sleep deprivation and I guess I feel blessed that I’m able to enjoy this time and be ‘Mum’ – I don’t have to turn up to an office, I juggle work and I’m grateful. I’ve been longing to slow down and have a family for a long time and here I am.

“Just enjoying it in it’s all it’s beauty — and there’s beauty in the shit stuff too.”

While she’s stopped competing on the snow, Bright hosts the kid’s Torah Bright Mini Shred in Thredbo every year, which this season will be held in July. Pre-COVID, she also shot an IMAX documentary called Out Of Bounds, which will be released when restrictions allow.

And of all that she’s done — and she’s done a lot — naming Flow was one of the hardest things for her and Angus, she laughed.

“It was the hardest thing … because you don’t really know who they are — and I was like ‘bud, if you don't like your name you can change it later’,” she said.

“I’m just going to keep showing up, unapologetically me. I think we all need to do that. Spend some time finding out who we are, and just being that.”