Winter Olympics: Jarryd Hughes’ frosty reception for snowboard silver
After winning silver for Australia in the snowboard cross, not a single teammate bothered to congratulate the 22-year-old.
Sydneysider Jarryd Hughes won Australia’s 15th Olympic winter medal, a silver in the snowboard cross at Bokwang yesterday, only to return to a frosty reception by his fellow Australian athletes.
Fellow Australian finalist Alex “Chumpy” Pullin, who said he was caught by a gust of wind and “overshot a jump by 40 foot’’ to finish sixth, congratulated and hugged the other contenders, including the winner Frenchman Pierre Vaultier, but snubbed Hughes.
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Pullin even failed to mention the silver medal or Hughes’s name in interviews after the race, as his countryman was being congratulated on the podium by Ski and Snowboard Australia president Dean Gosper, son of IOC honorary member Kevan. Then when Hughes met his family at the bottom of the hill, other Australian family huddles — including those with Pullin — failed to move across and congratulate either Hughes or his family.
The atmosphere was more frozen than the -8C temperatures.
Olympic Winter Institute boss Geoff Lipshut said the longstanding issues between Hughes, 22, and the 30-year-old Pullin had resulted in separate and distinct programs and the animosity was so vicious officials had rehearsed the Olympic situation “for years’’.
“Those are personal issues they have,” Lipshut said. “What we have done is put a process in place where they all respect each other as athletes.
“We’ve set up a process where they are happy to be on the same team here and they all get on well enough to do their sport — and that’s all we ask of them.”
“No one crossed each other and the lead-up here has been respectful. We actually rehearsed the lead-in (to PyeongChang) for years. We said, ‘You’re all going to be in the same team, you better get used to it’.
“I’m actually not going to say what my worst fear was.”
When asked to elaborate Lipshut said: ”It think in this sport, you need to be a very strong personality because it’s just dog-eat-dog out there. That’s the type of sport it is. If you want dog-eat-dog, you need some big dogs.”
Hughes trains with New Zealand and Canadian coaches and organised his own wax technician, but retains financial support from the OWIA and the Australian Olympic Committee. The funding issue drove a wedge between the two athletes in Sochi four years ago when Hughes felt Pullin had preferential treatment.
But yesterday Hughes said he would not have won the medal if he had been forced to stay within a single Australian program.
He acknowledged that none of his teammates had congratulated him and said: “We’re an individual sport, we all want to beat each other. It is what it is.”
Hughes was asked how the team would celebrate and he responded that he had no idea but that he was going to enjoy it.
Hughes’s path to the Olympic medal has been tough: he has had five surgeries on his left knee and has had little on-snow training, instead training with rugby players in Sydney.
Then his family’s business, the Monster Skate Park at Sydney Olympic Park, went up in flames in May. He helped his parents Jennifer and Darren build a new skate park and ninja warrior course, and used the gym and cross-training facilities it included to finesse his fitness and reactions.
“After World Championships last year I wasn’t happy with the result, I needed a break so I went home from World Champs with a few World Cups to go,” he said. “It wasn’t the best season ever ... but I had great support from mum and dad and I was able to knuckle down and stay healthy. I have an amazing team and it just keeps me wanting to come back and do more and enjoy it. As long as I am enjoying it ... results will come along.’’
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