No thaw in relations between snowboarders Jarryd Hughes and Alex Pullin

Tension so bad between Alex Pullin and Jarryd Hughes it’s taken years to co-ordinate Olympics appearance.

Arch-rivals Jarryd Hughes and Alex Pullin, centre, face off during the men’s snowboard cross final at the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games on Thursday. Picture: AFP

Jarryd Hughes was at one end of the start gate, Alex Pullin at the other. The two Australian top dogs had a bit of space at Thursday’s final of the snowboard cross at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics and that distancing gave comfort to Australian officials at the ­bottom of the hill.

This wasn’t just excited anticipation that two Australians could win a medal, but a pit of fear that Pullin and Hughes — those arch-enemies — would take each other out of contention down the snowboard cross course.

In the end, Hughes won silver, and Pullin also won, of sorts, by surviving the equivalent of falling from a four-storey building on to concrete without any injury.

And then the big freeze set in.­ To understand why a sullen Pullin appeared to snub Hughes and did not utter his name or congratulate his teammate in the immediate aftermath of the race goes back to events of nearly five years ago.

Hughes is the maverick of the team, the 22-year-old only child of skatepark owners Darren and Jenny in Artarmon on Sydney’s north shore.

Said Hughes: “I’m an only child — they got it right the first time’’.

He was frustrated in the lead-up to the 2014 Sochi Olympics that he wasn’t getting the same financial support provided to Pullin, the two-time world champion.

Pullin is the 30-year-old star from Mansfield in Victoria who has a cute nickname — Chumpy — and who encouraged his mate Cameron Bolton to ride with him on the world cup circuit, thus creating a situation where Pullin and Bolton — at the time ranked 27th in the world — received all manner of support worth tens of thousands of dollars not provided to young gun Hughes.

Jarryd Hughes, who won silver, trained separately from the rest of the team. Picture: Getty Images

The disparity exploded at Sochi when #teamoutcast was broadcast by Australian team members who felt isolated, including Olympic champion Torah Bright, Belle Brockhoff and Hughes.

Pullin was seen to be in the inner circle of the winter sports political circle as the man designated to win a medal.

Hughes, while recognised as a future star, had overcome knee injuries to win his first world cup two months before and was frustrated his potential was not supported.

After the Sochi debacle, the Australian Olympic Winter Institute and Olympic officials brokered a peace accord between the two camps.

The two would not have to talk to each other and would have separate coaches and tech support. Hughes even sourced his own wax technician.

Winter Institute boss Geoff Lipshut said Hughes didn’t want to be part of the same snowboard program as the others and he agreed the best way was to completely separate the men.

For years, officials worked on the “PyeongChang plan’’ as to how to have the two men in the same room and on the same Olympic team.

Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin and his girlfriend, Ellidy Vlug. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Lipshut said the PyeongChang results where Hughes won a silver medal, Pullin came in sixth and Bolton came 10th vindicates the parallel programs. “To get three in the top 10 means that what Jarryd did worked and … what Chumpy did almost worked,’’ he said. ­Hughes’s father told The Weekend Australian he received some congratulations from (non-snowboard cross) families but wasn’t upset that other Australian team supporters had distanced themselves at the bottom of the hill.

“Everyone is just focused on their own son, and it’s an individual sport,’’ Darren Hughes said.

Ellidy Vlug, Pullin’s girlfriend, said yesterday while there had been tensions, the team worked well together.

“There’s nothing in the air about that anymore,” she said. “It’s all fine, they were all out celebrating last night. Chumpy is super proud of all the Aussies. Jarryd did a great job yesterday.”

Meanwhile, the Australian Olympic Committee was furious that the bitter divide between the two men was being misrepresented as tension in the team.

Chef de mission Ian Chesterman said: “It’s a gladiatorial sport, they are individuals and they go for it.”

Another official said: “Everyone knows the two hate each other’s guts and that’s not a story. It is wrong to say there is tension in the team.’’