Scotty James is young, cool and has a full head of hair - he has everything your correspondent doesn't

MEET Scotty James, the 19-year-old Aussie who could just be our very own version of Justin Bieber. Seriously.

Australia's Scotty James competes in the Men's Snowboard Slopestyle first heat qualification.

HE'S got the hair. He's got the attitude. He's got the world at his feet and the instant attention of any room he walks into.

Meet Scotty James, the 19-year-old Aussie who could just be the Aussie Justin Bieber of the Sochi Olympics.

OK, so the snowboarder from the outer Melbourne suburb of Warrandyte has committed none of the American screecher's recent indiscretions. But there's something about his irreverence which inevitably invites comparison.

That and his boyish good looks.

"Justin Bieber's pretty sweet and he gets the ladies so that's what you want at the end of the day, I guess," James said with a smirk in Sochi this week when asked about his physical resemblance to Bieber.

James competes in the snowboard slopestyle, the first of his two events at these Games later today. He missed direct qualification for the final in pre-qualifying, but is favoured to battle his way through a tough semi-final.

From there, anything is possible.

Australia's Scotty James competes in the Men's Snowboard Slopestyle qualification.

Slopestyle is a new event at these Games, one of many introduced over the past three Winter Olympics to cater for a younger audience raised on America's X Games. The event sees competitors hurl themselves over a series of jumps, rails and other features commonly seen in ski resort "terrain parks".

It's all very showy and very gen Y, just like Scotty James himself.

James was 15 in Vancouver, the youngest male Winter Olympian from any country in over 50 years.

He's grown a whopping 23cm in the four years since Vancouver, and after radically changing his style to suit his growing body with a new American coach, he has matured into a genuinely world-class athlete.

Australia's Scotty James competes in the Men's Snowboard Slopestyle first heat qualification.

In January, James secured the prized crystal globe as the best performer on the World Cup circuit in snowboard half-pipe, his other event at these Games.

He won the trophy with consistent top 10 results rather than moments of brilliance in what was a weak World Cup season with many top competitors absent and saving themselves for Sochi.

Indeed, James had no wins and his best result was a third.

As Bieber might say, whatevs. The crystal globe is his and it definitely won't hurt his swagger. And snowboarding, like boxing, is all about swagger.

James has already shown plenty of his trademark bravado at these Games.

When asked about the British team staying in the adjacent apartments in the athletes' village, he said, "I should start giving them some after the Ashes. We're staying close enough, I could yell off the balcony."

At a Sochi press conference for his teammates, James sat on the main floor with the journalists, grabbed a microphone and fired in an impromptu question.

Then there was the Instagram pic where he can be seen hanging precariously off the Olympic rings.

And he pulled quite the comic twist on Thursday when asked about a crash on Sochi's monster slopestyle course.

"I was a little embarrassed so I wasn't going to tell anyone but I hurt my man parts really bad, of all things. I was like, 'Oh no, this is going to be embarrassing to tell people.'"

When he's not making fun of delicate matters, there's a rebellious side to Scotty James, too.

He is part of an unofficial group of Australian athletes who use the mysterious #teamoutcast hashtag on Twitter.

Heart 1 for @TorahBright and I tomorrow! Tune in and watch the action 4pm Aus time on @TenSportMelb @tensporttv pic.twitter.com/VwB6F09KfX

Snowboard superstar Torah Bright is the undeclared ringleader of Team Outcast, which also includes outspoken lesbian snowboarder Belle Brockhoff.

"We're not part of a team and we are not helped along the way in our journey to the Games or any other events," James said when questioned about Team Outcast.

The Australian Olympic Committee rejected those comments, saying both Torah Bright and Scotty James had been offered and had declined Olympic Winter Institute of Australia scholarships.

It also pointed out that they had state institute scholarships to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

If James performs even half as well as many expect in Sochi, the Bieber of the Aussie team will be able to court hundreds of thousands from sponsors, and possibly much, much more.

XXII Sochi Winter Olympics. Catch all of the action live and exclusive on Ten.