Torquay’s Alana Hunt crowned under-13 US national champion in freestyle skiing

Following hard in the footsteps of Barwon Heads’ Winter Olympic gold medallist Jakara Anthony, a Torquay 12-year-old is carving up the snow and taking the US by storm. See the video.

Alana Isobel Hunt is a star freestyle skier. Picture: Jon Hunt.

A pre-teen Torquay freestyle skier has been crowned a national champion in the US, less than a decade after first taking up the sport.

And it only happened after 12-year-old Alana Hunt and her family packed up and relocated to the states, then drove all over Colorado in a bid to accrue points and qualify for the early April event.

The sacrifice would pay off, with Alana winning the national title for under-13 girls in freestyle skiing, competing against the country’s best.

She had to compete in four skiing events at Copper Mountain: SkiCross racing, Superpipe, Rail Jam and Slopestyle, and it follows the success of Olympic champion and Barwon Heads mogul skier Jakara Anthony.

Held from late March to early April, competitors qualified for the championships through regional series or through national rankings.

Alana’s father Jon said her daughter enjoyed soccer, swimming, surfing and trampolining as a kid, but somehow ended up landing in the sport of skiing.

Alana Hunt has become a US junior skiing champion. Picture: Jon Hunt.

“We weren’t great skiers before but we took her to Mount Hotham when she was three years old and she just took to it straight away,” Jon said.

“Her very first ski lesson at Mount Hotham her instructor came back and said: ‘She is awesome, seriously you just need to let her ski!’

“And we took it literally and started taking her up to Mount Buller each year and she just went from strength to strength.

“She joined a ski program up at Mount Buller and it all just spiralled from there.”

Jon said there were plenty of qualifying events in each state of the US throughout the ski season, with Alana making it through in the Colorado Rocky Mountain division.

“If you rank highly enough at the end of the season you qualify for the national championships at Copper Mountain,” he said.

“We had to drive all around Colorado in the season to go to different resorts to do the qualifying competitions, so we got to see a lot of resorts like Aspen, Vail and Steamboat.

“It was a lot of early morning starts and long drives in difficult snowy driving conditions but it was worth it in the end.”

Alana Hunt won the under-13 national championship in the US for freestyle skiing. Picture: Jon Hunt.

Returning to Torquay at the end of April, Alana said she first got into skiing at the age of three and “immediately loved the feeling of freedom and going really fast”.

While being crowned national champion was a career highlight, landing her first backflip on skis at the age of nine also ranked pretty high.

However, the Torquay Coast Primary School student’s success has come with sacrifice and distance from her friends and family back home.

Training with Team Buller Riders at Mount Buller during the Australian ski season, she travelled to Colorado for the northern hemisphere snow season, and was based at the Winter Park Resort.

Training with the Winter Park Competition Center program, Alana loved training with the local kids and US coaches.

Due to the international nature of her sport, she has to be homeschooled during the ski training season.

“But I really miss my school friends and I always love going back to school in Torquay once the snow season is over,” Alana said.

“I work hard to keep up with schooling while we are away and that is all part of the challenge.

“One of the best pieces of advice I have received is that it doesn’t always have to be about winning or doing well, skiing for fun and with friends is also really important.”

Originally published as Torquay’s Alana Hunt crowned under-13 US national champion in freestyle skiing