Discipline: Alpine Skiing
Olympic Participation: Albertville 1992, Lillehammer 1994, Nagano 1998, Salt Lake City 2002
Achievements: Olympic Bronze medal, Slalom (Nagano 1998); World Champion, Slalom (Vail 1999), World Cup gold, Slalom (Park City, 1997), World Cup silver, Slalom (Mammoth Mountain, 1998)
Medal awarded in: 2021

Four-time Olympian Zali Steggall OAM is Australia’s most successful alpine skier. Her bronze medal in slalom at Nagano 1998 was only the second Winter Olympic medal in Australia’s history, following the bronze won by the men’s 5000m relay short track speed skating team in 1994. In 1999 she also became the first and only Australian World Champion in alpine skiing when she won the slalom title in Vail, USA.

Raised in Manly, NSW, Steggall first got her love and passion for snowsports and skiing from her parents, both keen skiers. They put Zali and her brother, snowboard Olympian Zeke Steggall, on skis at a very young age. In Zali’s case, that meant she was skiing before she was two. They would often head down to Perisher and the four of them would be on the slopes all day.

Her family lived in France for a few years between the late 1970s and 1980s and Zali started ski racing while there, in Morzine. She first set herself the goal of competing at the Olympics when she was about 13, watching Vreni Schneider and Alberto Tomba winning golds at the 1988 Calgary Games.

Just four years later, Steggall was making her first Olympic experience at Albertville 1992, where she competed in Slalom, Giant Slalom and Alpine Combined. 

An allrounder at the beginning of her career, Steggall decided to specialise in slalom after her second Winter Games, a decision that brought huge dividends down the line. After a few years spent chipping away at the FIS rankings,  she was eventually able to secure her first World Cup gold in Park City, at the beginning of the 1997/98 season. 

In the same winter season, at the 1998 Nagano Olympic Games, she won the bronze medal in slalom - the first skier ever to win a Winter Olympic medal for Australia.

The following season she finished again on the podium in a World Cup slalom (2nd place at Mammoth Mountain, USA) on the way to be crowned World Champion in the discipline at Vail, USA, in 1999. 

In 2002 she decided to retire from ski racing and set herself new life challenges after competing in her fourth Olympic Winter Games and becoming the first Australian snow sports four-time Olympian, alongside mogul skier Adrian Costa. 

A mother of two, she went to study law and added a degree to her Bachelor of Arts in Community Media and Communications. She then practiced in Sydney as a barrister for about ten years, also taking the opportunity to become an arbitrator for the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). In that capacity she attended the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang. In 2019 she ran for Parliament as an independent in the Division of Warringah, becoming a federal MP in that year’s elections.

Amongst her many accomplishments, Steggall also received an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2007. She was inducted into the Australian Institute of Sport 'Best of the Best' in 2001 and in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2004.