From THE AUSTRALIAN
AUSTRALIA'S queen of extreme, Torah Bright, has won the gold medal in the women's snowboard halfpipe final.
She lived up to her billing by becoming the first Australia to win an Olympic gold medal in snowboarding at Cypress Mountain this afternoon.
Wearing gold goggles and gold bindings, Bright was unwilling to settle for less than a matching accessory around her neck, despite taking the hard way to Winter Olympics victory.
She recovered from a fall on her first run in the final to nail the most technically difficult run in women's snowboarding, earning a huge score of 45.0 points out of 50.
After completing her run, Bright clutched her knees in relief, almost falling to the ground, as Cathy Freeman did when she won the 400m in Sydney.
The pressure on Bright, as one of Australia's few gold medal contenders, was enormous after a troubled preparation in which she sustained three concussions while trying to perfect a winning Olympic run.
She was unable to train for two weeks leading into the Games, after slamming her head into the floor of the pipe while preparing for the X Games last month.
However Bright and her brother/coach Ben were confident that they had the arsenal to win in Vancouver after dominating many of the world's top competition for the past four years.
She kept her composure after her fall and returned to the top of the pipe determined to excell on her second run.
“Falling on the first run is never good because it puts a lot of pressure on you,” she said.
“But once I got up to the top, I had one more run and I thought: 'I know what I have to do, I have done it before'. I was standing up the top and saw my family and friends and thought: 'We are all out here having fun, let's go have some fun'.
