Even down a phone line, Rosie Fordham gives the impression of someone brimming with energy. The 24-year-old from New South Wales has just finished waxing her skis when she speaks, preparing the tools of a trade she has taken further than any of her compatriots. Cross-country skiing is among the most gruelling of physical pursuits, a full-body effort in sub-zero, high-altitude conditions, and those who compete are supremely fit and intensely self-motivated.
Fordham is the finest cross-country skier the country has produced. Last year she became the first from her nation to win a medal at an international cross-country event, taking silver in a 10-kilometre race at a junior world championships, and she has since recorded top-20 finishes on the World Cup circuit and the country’s best-ever Winter Olympic placing in the sport. She says results like these are helping a long-overlooked discipline gain recognition at home.
That growing profile is on display each year at the Kangaroo Hoppet, one of the most visible symbols of endurance sport on the local winter calendar. Its roots trace to a Nordic ski club founded in 1977 at Mount Beauty, in Victoria, and in 1991 it became the first Southern Hemisphere event in the global Worldloppet series of ski marathons. Held annually on the third Saturday in August around Falls Creek, this year’s 32nd edition drew 730 skiers across three events despite challenging snow.
Fordham won the women’s race for the second year running, while an Olympian claimed the men’s event for the first time. She said the race reminded her how much support the sport had at home, describing crowds of everyday skiers who lined the course and cheered the leading athletes by name even as they raced hard themselves. It was easy, she said, to forget while competing overseas that a whole community back home was invested in how they did.
Officials credit a schools program, through which thousands of students compete each year, with feeding that talent pipeline; many members of the country’s most recent Winter Olympic team came through it. Fordham found the sport the same way, discovering cross-country skiing in year eight after starting as a downhill skier and runner. Now a full-time athlete after finishing university, she is setting her sights on world championships and future Olympics, insisting that holding her nation’s best-ever results is a starting point rather than an ending.
