We’ve won our 4th ever Winter Olympics Gold Medal: The Age.
Of course everyone in Australia knows who won the first one, and it will be a story for the ages: Steven Bradbury is 4th in the final and looks out of it, and then the 3 people ahead crash into each other, allowing him to win.
But I digress: how is it that Australia has gone from Winter Games minnow to moderately successful in the last 10 years?
Skiing has always been expensive here: I can remember as a kid only the richest in school went on skiing holidays because it was that expensive, and if you’ve ever checked prices today, it still is ($100-$200/ day for a lift pass etc.)
But I wonder whether Australia’s growing affluence may be reflected in our increased share of Winter Olympic gold?
That is: more people can afford to ski locally AND fly overseas and do it vs in the past.
The stats show every year record numbers of Australian’s holidaying offshore, and some of them might be heading for the snow as well.
I haven’t checked any stats, but I’d love to know if you could chart affluence against Australian Winter sport success.
