Australia at the Torino Winter Paralympics 2006
Australia took its largest-ever winter team, including ten athletes and ten support staff, to Torino. One of these athletes, Emily Jansen, a below-knee amputee skier, was Australia’s first-ever female Winter Paralympic competitor, 46 years after Daphne Ceeney had become Australia’s first female athlete at the Summer Paralympic Games and 30 years after the first winter Paralympics. It was also the first time that a staff member of the Australian Paralympic Committee – CEO Darren Peters – served as the team’s Chef de Mission. It established a practice that has generally been continued.
Media coverage in Australia was the most extensive ever experienced for a winter Games, even though Melbourne was hosting the Commonwealth Games at the same time. The ABC had exclusive rights, along with ParalympicSport.TV, and telecast nightly, 30-minute, prime time highlights. Its comprehensive coverage was so impressive that it won the IPC 2007 Paralympic Media Award.
Performance:
Australia was represented by 10 athletes, the country’s largest-ever Winter Paralympic Games team to that time. These athletes competed in three sports: Alpine Skiing, Biathlon, and Cross-Country Skiing. Prior to the games, the Australian Paralympic Committee set a target of two medals, down from the seven that had been won in Salt Lake City in 2002. This was due to the retirement of three-time medallist Bart Bunting, as well as changes made to the medal event structure in alpine skiing, which reduced the number of classes from 13 to 3. Australia met its medal target with a silver and a bronze medal, won by leg amputee skiers Michael Milton and Toby Kane, respectively and finished 8th on the alpine skiing medal table and equal 13th on the overall medal tally.
Australia was represented by 10 athletes at the 2006 Torino Winter Paralympics, the country’s largest-ever Winter Paralympic Games team.
Date: March 2006
Choose fields
© 2024 Australian Paralympic Committee
Web Design and Development by NOUS