TOYOTA AMBASSADOR
Published: 9 December 2021
NAME
Belle Brockhoff
BORN
12 January 1993
sport
Snowboarding/Snowboard cross
olympic history
Sochi 2014
PyeongChang 2018
Beijing 2022
We are proud to be supporting Belle as she chases gold at the XXIV Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. We caught up with Belle recently, while meeting with our Olympian and Paralympian ambassadors, to hear more about her journey representing Australia on the world stage.
Q: How did you first get into Snowboarding? How old were you and what was it like the first time you were able to compete?
A: When I was nine years old, I saw my mum buy her first snowboard. I got jealous and asked for one too. She then made a deal with me; get to level one in ski school and I could get a snowboard. At the end of that year, I completed the challenge and started snowboarding. Long story short, a few weeks later I won the snowboard GS nationals. Aiming to be the fastest was the most exciting thing ever. I stuck with it and haven’t looked back since.
Q: You were the first Australian female to win a Snowboard Cross World Cup in the 2015/16 season in Spain, how did that feel?
A: It felt amazing and was a huge relief as I’d been working towards that win for a long time. My late teammate, Alex Pullin won the men’s event five minutes later, so it was a very special day for us both and for Australia, as history was made. We were the first two athletes in snowboardcross to win men and women at the same World Cup for Australia.
Q: You went on to win three World Cup medals, two gold and one silver during the 2016/17 season, do you feel this was your best season?
A: To date, in terms of medal colors it was my best season, but it was also bittersweet. Yes, it was my most successful season, but it was also the start of a challenging journey.
Q: What are the biggest challenges you’ve overcome?
A: At the World Championships in early March 2017, I let fear get the better of me and I had a crash on the racetrack rupturing my left ACL. I was devasted as I’d come into Worlds as favourite. That same day I had to decide on whether I would compete at PyeongChang 2018 or miss it and take my time rehabbing. I knew I had to compete as I would have regretted it if I didn’t. The Winter Olympics were only eleven months away.
I had the ACL reconstruction later that month and then started an intense rehab which involved five rehab sessions and five icing sessions a day, seven days a week. There wasn’t much time for anything else. At one point, I remember thinking how strange it was to be teaching my leg how to walk again with The Winter Olympics just around the corner. Each day I progressed and felt the confidence come back in the smallest amounts.
Fast track to December 2017 at the World Cup in Val Thorens, France and after a damn good training day on the track, I felt fast and strong. On the day of the time trials the visibility was very poor due to flat light and heavy snowfall. As I raced down, I miss timed a feature that I couldn’t see, crashed and ruptured my ACL again. I was only two months out from The Winter Olympics and all that rehab over the past nine months had gone down the drain.
Once again, I began an intense rehab program and after a successful World Cup in Germany, I qualified for PyeongChang 2018. Over the two training days we had at the Olympic track prior to race day, I kept crashing and couldn’t get one lap in. I remember moving to the sidelines after each crash and watching my competitors get good gull laps in. As the heats progressed, I got faster but I wasn’t fast enough in my movements to adapt to my increasing speed. I crashed in semi-finals and finished up eleventh. It was a disappointing result as I know I’ve achieved better, but I had no ACL. I then came home for my second knee reconstruction and to start my rehab journey back to the sport.
Q: What are the most recent achievements that you’re particularly proud of?
A: I’m proud of my come back season in 2019/2020. I medalled in five out of six World Cups, including a win. I’m even more proud of my 2021 World Championship gold medal. From the crash in March 2017 to the 2021 World Champs, I finally reached that place where I could truly back myself in a race and fully trust my abilities as an athlete.
Q: What does your training consist of? How do you train in the off season?
Off season training involves a lot of physical preparations. I have different training blocks that focus on strength, explosiveness, agility and cardio. I’m grateful that my team is open to new ideas and ways to progress myself. As part of the extra one percenters that I look for, I mix in boxing, calisthenic foundations and I also love road biking. The road biking does more than just cardio for me - it’s training I use to increase my focus and energy output threshold under fatigue. This year I have included some MMA training too to expand overall body awareness and awareness of other people’s movements.
Q: Another area that you are passionate about is educating other women who are up and coming in the sport, why is this so important to you and what have you been doing to support these young athletes?
A: I truly feel that as an athlete and the first woman to get a World Cup medal for Australia (Snowboard Cross), that I’ve set up the sport well enough so that the women coming up behind me can do better than I ever did. I feel that it’s my responsibility to see the sport progress. It’s part of the love I have for it and it’s why I’m passionate about educating other women. I really enjoy supporting women in other sports and because I know the mental game across all sports is the same, I feel that I can have a positive impact on them. Doing something for other athletes is the most rewarding thing I have found so far.
Q: You also spend time doing charity work, can you tell us about your role with Lifeline and why this is so important to you?
A: I've always enjoyed volunteering my time from fundraising for the Salvation Army, participating in the Cancer Council Relay for Life and cooking for the homeless with The Big Umbrella Foundation. As a teenager I went through depths of depression and anxiety. Snowboarding gave me a purpose in life and enabled me to build my life into a position where I don’t struggle with depression and anxiety anymore. In that sense, I owe the sport a lot and it’s why I’ve been volunteering in the mental health space. I’ve been a Community Custodian for Lifeline for the last three years and I was with Beyond Blue prior to that. Lifeline has community custodians from all walks of life, and we share our stories to encourage positive change and create hope for those who need it most. It’s personal for me and with my platform, I aim to create awareness around mental health and depression.
More recently, I’ve been involved with the Heat the Homeless campaign with XTM Performance where we encourage donations of old snow jackets and then distribute them out to the homeless on the street. I’ve also just become an ambassador for the Amy Gillett Foundation. My role here is to encourage mindfulness of cyclists and drivers on the road to make sure everyone gets home safe.
Q: We look forward to watching you compete in the XXIV Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. How difficult has it been training during continual lockdowns?
A: Part of being an athlete is being able to adapt as situations arise. During the first lockdown, I didn’t want to lose potential fitness gains over the off season, so I used my World Cup prize money to buy a basic gym setup for my home. I did get small windows in the Victorian Institute of Sport (where I normally train) when it did open up. Aside from the equipment, the beauty about having access to a gym like that is the social touchpoints it has. I get inspired seeing different athletes train and I sometimes pick up ideas to better my own training.
This year was harder in terms of motivation, and I’ve noticed the overall energy is lower with everyone here compared to last. Right now, I try organise my sessions with other athletes to motivate and uplift each other. We are only human after all, sometimes we go through patches like this and that’s okay.
Thanks Belle!
