Holly's Story
When Holly Crawford dropped into the halfpipe in her final Winter Olympic Games at PyeongChang 2018, the 33-year-old became Australia’s sixth four-time Winter Olympian. Crawford was a regular on the international snowboard stage for close to two decades, ever since she placed 8th in snowboard cross and 13th in halfpipe at the 2002 Junior World Championships.
Crawford had a successful, albeit injury-hampered career. She claimed silver at the 2009 World Championships in Korea - Australia's first Snowboard Halfpipe World Championship medal. She went on to win the World Championship crown in 2011, and claim another silver medal in 2013.
She made her Olympic Games debut at the Torino Winter Olympics in 2006, finishing 18th in the Snowboard Halfpipe. Four years on, Crawford jumped up the standings, finishing eighth in the same event at the Vancouver 2010 Games. Just before her third Games, Crawford won silver at the Olympic Test Event in 2013; but in doing so she aggravated a longstanding injury to her rib cage cartilage. She went into the Sochi Games carrying injuries from a crash three weeks before the Games where she broke her left wrist, banged her knee and cracked some ribs. Unfortunately, she could not improve on her Vancouver result at Sochi and finished 26th.
After only contesting three events since Sochi, Crawford ramped up her competition schedule in 2017 with the prospect of a fourth Games within her grasp. Crawford placed eighth at the Mammoth World Cup in February 2017 and 13th at the Olympic Test Event in PyeongChang before joining a young Australian Team in Sapporo for the 2017 Asian Winter Games, where she placed seventh. Crawford capped off her 2017 season with an impressive 10th place finish at the World Championships in Sierra Nevada, Spain.
At her final Games in Korea, Crawford came agonisingly close to qualifying for the women’s halfpipe final, putting down a best qualifying score of 57.50 to miss out by one place, finishing 13th overall.
