Mogul skier Edward Hill among the young athletes supported by 2021/22 Emerging Talent Program

Australia’s next generation of Winter Olympic ski and snowboarding athletes are identified through Snow Australia’s Emerging Talent Program (ETP), a development project which in recent years has given many young Australian athletes, including Valentino Guseli and Josie Baff, amazing opportunities to grow their talent.

Edward Hill is one of almost 70 young athletes enrolled in the program for 2021/2022, which is once again sponsored by American fund manager The Lind Partners. The 15-year old moguls skier is training to make the most of the opportunity, hoping to follow in the footsteps of Australian Olympians such as 2018 Olympic silver medalist Matt Graham. 

Hill has been a Team Buller Riders (TBR) athlete since he was 10 years old, but had also taken part in TBR’s overseas program since he was seven. 

“I don’t remember learning to ski - I started as soon as I could walk,” Hill said. “I fell in love with mogul skiing when I was about four years old. My sister had started training with TBR at the time and I liked watching her and her friends practice when they were training on the jumps. It’s how I discovered how exciting it is to ski a full mogul course top to bottom, including the jumps!”

Despite the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Hill was able to log 59 water-jump days and 61 on-snow ski days in the last 12 months, also committing full time to a dedicated strength and conditioning program that boosted his training capacity and helped him rid his body of some common youth injuries and minor overload issues.

“Thanks to the ETP, I am doing more off-snow training than before, especially gym work, which is helping my development,” Hill said.

A proficient athlete, Hill attends Scotch College and until recently he was also a competitive footballer and cricketer. Over the last two years he has put those sports aside to focus on mogul skiing full time.

“I love all sports, but I never really competed at a high level in the other disciplines. I’ve always enjoyed skiing, so it's been easy for me to commit full-time to moguls training,” he said.

The ETP is more than just a skill-development project for emerging athletes - the program also connects them with mentors from the current Olympians and senior athletes groups and gives them the opportunity to obtain valuable information on elite athletes’ training experiences, how to deal with pressure and expectations, plus how to achieve a balanced lifestyle.

Hill agreed that having direct access to inspirational athletes is crucial to advance young talents’ high-performance aspirations, citing Winter Olympians Jakara Anthony and Brodie Summers in particular as athletes he looks up to.

“At Mt Buller I live at the top of the moguls training run, so I’ve grown up watching a lot of elite moguls skiers training and competing since I was very young,” Hill explained.

“Jakara started her moguls skiing career at TBR and I used to watch her train. Now when I see her representing Australia, it makes me feel like it might be possible for me to achieve the same goals.

“Brodie Summers has taught me not to give up. He’s had a series of bad injuries, but he keeps training and he never surrenders,” he said.

Hill was meant to participate in his first FIS National Championships this year, before the event got cancelled due to COVID-19. However, he is still on track for NSWIS scholarship nomination in 2022 or 2023.

“I want to be the best possible moguls skier I can be, and I would love to represent Australia one day,” Hill said.

About Snow Australia Emerging Talent Program

The Emerging Talent Program (ETP) is Snow Australia Talent Identification and Development (TID) program which aims to identify, support and enhance preparation of potential performance athletes for transition into the performance pathway programs. It is made possible by funding from the AIS Performance Pathway funding stream and with generous support from The Lind Partners and the Hancock Family.

The Lind Partners is a US-based institutional fund manager and leading provider of growth capital to small and mid-cap companies, including many Australian businesses, particularly in the mining sector. The partnership between Snow Australia and The Lind Partners is designed to nurture emerging talents and help them unlock their full potential. Lind Advisory Board member John Hancock made a further pledge to support Australia’s next generation of snow athletes via ongoing program donations, which will enable additional investment and support of the ETP. The generous support of both John and Gemma Hancock and The Lind Partners, through its founder Jeff Easton, will make a substantial difference to the capability of the ETP.