Growing up with Torah

Our magazine hit the big “2-0” a few years ago. Not only has our masthead grown up covering the world’s most superb athletes, we’ve kinda matured alongside them. One such luminary is Aussie Winter Olympian Torah Bright. The 27-year-old’s already-famous Silver in the Women’s Snowboard Halfpipe at Sochi made us reflect on just how far she’s come since we first featured that smile within our pages all the way back in 2006, an edition in which we branded her the “world’s coolest Mormon”. Back then we caught up with the very young Bright following her fifth placing at the Turin Games. She reflected thus: “To the world an Olympic medal is incredible. For Australia, how I went in Turin sucked.”

Fast forward to our Vancouver Games preview in 2010 and our blurb on Bright reflected the expectations which had been built upon the now-superstar’s shoulders in four short years. “Australia’s best-known snowboarder looms as this country’s brightest gold medal prospect in Vancouver,” we wrote. She left Canada with gold. Job done.

And so to our Sochi Winter Games preview in our February 2014 issue. There she is, all grown up. Ours and Australia’s expectations of her had stepped up again. “Australia’s other defending champion [besides Lydia Lassila], Bright has bold ambitions for Sochi … She could again prove the smiling face of Australia’s Olympic campaign,” we quite accurately gushed. So here’s to another four years of success to our greatest-ever Winter Olympian, alongside Dale Begg-Smith. “Job done” indeed.