Cardrona Rider Juliane Bray Qualifies For Olympics

Cardrona Alpine Resort sponsored snowboarder, Juliane Bray, has qualified for the Olympics in both the half pipe and boarder-x following good competition results in Europe.

In the recent Snowboard World Cup Finals in Sweden, Juliane finished 17th on a very fast and aggressive boarder-x course, missing out on the finals by a frustrating 0.3 seconds but earning enough FIS points to increase her ranking to Olympic qualification.

“The boarder-x course was incredible,” she said. “It took me the two days of training to feel OK through it. I needed to ride at 150% to make it safely through the course. If I rode too slowly I wouldn’t clear the jumps and land flat. It was mentally exhausting and physically demanding but I loved it.”

Last month in Italy Juliane also qualified for the Olympic half pipe event in the Olympic venue itself at Bardonnechia, Italy.

“My reasons for going to the event were to check out the Olympic venue, ride some half pipe and have some fun,” she said. “I ended up doing better than I expected placing 13th in one event and 38th in the other due to crashing in my runs. These results qualify me for the Olympic Half Pipe.”

Juliane has been competing at World Cup level throughout the Northern Hemisphere winter in a bid to represent New Zealand at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy – a goal she has now reached after many months of hard work.

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