News & Media

UOW graduate slides her way into 12th place at Winter Olympics

A Physical Education graduate from UOW has tackled one of the world’s most demanding sliding tracks to finish 12th in the women’s skeleton slider at Vancouver.

Melissa Hoar ranked number one in Australia for open women’s beach sprint and flags but switched from sand to ice to compete in the Winter Olympics.

Speaking to the ABC, Melissa said the Whistler track was the most demanding in the world. The tragic death of luger Nodar Kumaritashvili on the same track last week proved just how dangerous extreme winter sports can be.

However, Melissa told the ABC that skeleton and luge are very different sports with skeleton sliders having more control as they go down the track head first.

In skeleton, an individual person rides a small sled down a frozen track while lying face down and experiencing forces up to 5Gs. Steering is managed by slight shifts of the athlete on the sled and by dragging the feet.

Melissa has been a member of the Australian Skeleton Team for the past four years after being recruited through an Australian Institute of Sport Talent Identification program in her final year of study at UOW.

A two-time National Beach Sprint Champion, Melissa also held a UOW NAB Sports Scholarship and represented UOW in women’s football from 2001 to 2004. She was ranked number one in Australia for open women’s beach sprint and flags in her final year of study (2004).

She was an employee of the University Recreation and Aquatic Centre (URAC) while undertaking her Bachelor of Education degree.

With only 11 weeks of experience in the Skeleton, Melissa finished 13th during her World Championships debut in Calgary in February 2005.

She spent the first half of the 2008-09 season recuperating from a nagging hamstring injury, but managed to bounce back for World Cup competition that January, finishing 25 hundredths of a second behind American slider Katie Uhlaender for 14th place in Altenberg, Germany.

Before making her Olympic debut in Vancouver, Melissa slid to a career-best World Cup ninth and grabbed four (two gold, two silver) Intercontinental Cup medals.

Last reviewed: 22 February, 2010