NSWIS Lights Up: She shocked the world, now Charlotte’s finding out what that means

Despite shocking the world last March when she defeated the No.1 ranked moguls skier on what will be the Milano and Cortina Olympic course, Charlotte Wilson conceded she’s still discovering how her expectations have changed by winning her first world cup gold medal.

Wilson, who grew up riding horses and enjoying the serenity of the bush surrounding her family’s Jindabyne property, also finished her debut season on the world cup circuit with the FIS Rookie of the Year’s crystal trophy – a treasure that’s kept safely under lock and key due to fears her (allegedly) notoriously clumsy sister Abbey, one of Australia’s most surefooted snowboarders, might somehow drop it.

While Wilson’s role model, Olympic gold medallist Jakara Anthony OAM, praised her for ‘crushing’ her baptism in the elite league, the 20-year-old is working out what her success and accolades mean.

“I think I’m still finding out how much its changed my expectations,” said Wilson in her episode of the docuseries NSWIS Lights Up which can be viewed on the New South Wales Institute of Sport’s website.

“I think that it’s put a bit more confidence into me that I can do it, but I do have to still fight that voice that says that I have to do it every week. I had some great learning curves this season, and I have to remember that although this season had a lot of ups, in the grand scheme of elite sport there’s also a lot of downs.”

In a sport where success can be determined by split second decisions, Wilson vividly remembers the day she defeated America’s world No.1 Jaelin Kauf, described on the US Ski and Snowboard organisation’s website as the ‘fastest woman on the women’s moguls circuit’.

“I was in the gondola all by myself and it kind of dawned on me that I’d won a World Cup medal because it was either first or second,” she recalled. “And that was a pretty incredible feeling in itself.

“But at the bottom, my coach asked me what line I was in, and I said, ‘I don’t know, it doesn’t matter’. And he goes, ‘no, it does matter, Charlotte’ and I was like, ‘wait, I could actually have a chance at this thing!’

“And, so, yeah, standing in the gate, I was just trying to work on having a faster start because I was skiing against the fastest woman in mogul skiing, and I was just going to lay it all on the line, really, because that’s what I needed to do.

“I just remember getting to the middle of the run and being behind and knowing that it was now or never, and I was not going to be slowing down before the bottom air. It was a pretty amazing feeling to land and cross the line first.”

Wilson said she didn’t realise the significance of her achievement until one of her teammates rated it against other sporting achievements he’d witnessed.

“One of the boys on our team said it was one of his top sporting moments of all time,” she said. “But yeah, coming up against probably every single skier that I’ve looked up to on the World Cup circuit in previous years and then putting down my best runs was a pretty amazing feeling.”

“It definitely took a bit of reflecting afterwards to see what I’d actually done that day. I mean, I think it’s an honour to even get to verse the best of the best and stand in the gate next to them . . . and then also you get a hug at the bottom, which is kind of a super fan moment!”

Proud sister Abbey, then 18, said finding out on an app Charlotte had beaten her sport’s best athletes reduced her to tears.

“This is someone that I used to share a bedroom with, and now she’s got a gold medal, and is an Olympic hopeful. It blows me over the moon every day that I think about,” she said.

Away from the pressure cooker atmosphere of competing against the best in the business, Wilson – who is studying a Bachelor of Engineering and Master of Biomedical Engineering – unwinds by spending time with her horses Harry and Pearl.

“They mean the world to me, they’re like my pets really,” said Wilson, who competed in dressage. “They’re dogs but really big and I just love to give them a hug out in the paddock after a long day or just go for a relaxing ride out into the bush. It makes me forget about all the demands of training and uni and it’s quite relaxing.”

Wilson is fuelling her dream to one day winning the Olympic gold medal by watching and learning from her role model, Jakara Anthony.

“Jakara’s approach to training is pretty incredible to watch,” she enthused. “She’s a big role model for me in that sense, that she just puts her head down and she does the hard work, and she’s always doing the one-percenters, as we call them, you know.

“All those things apart from technical training and in the gym that make a difference. So she’s been a big role model in the nutrition space, and then she’s always gotten us behind, you know, cycling and those fun activities, lots of balance things, all the little things that make a difference for a high performance athlete.

“I’m really lucky to get to train in the same space as someone who’s achieved greatness like her. You know, you get an insight into what it really takes to be an Olympic champion.”

Daniel Lane, NSWIS