Brad Wall '02 is going to the Winter Olympics.
Not hopefully, or eventually, or someday -- he's going next year. And not as a spectator, but a ski racer. Two weeks ago, Wall slipped quietly away from Hanover to make a minor trip to St. Anton, Austria for the World Alpine Championships. He placed 29th in the Giant Slalom, and returned to Dartmouth one of three Men's Alpine ski racers set to compete in Salt Lake in 2002 for his native Australian Olympic Team. Brad is so mellow that if you're not paying close attention when he talks you could miss these little details, like the ones about him qualifying for the Winter Olympics and so forth.
Wall, a junior, is no stranger to international competition. He came to Dartmouth in the fall of 1998 after deferring his admission a year to travel with the Austria-based Australian ski team. As a freshman, he competed for the Dartmouth team all winter and also managed a sixth-place finish in the Super-G at World Junior Championships in France.
Wall is currently ranked 172nd in the world in the Super-G and 182nd in the GS, based on "a complicated point system that doesn't really make sense." He considers those two events his specialties; the GS being a two-run event of relatively precise turns and the Super-G involving "bigger turns and higher speed."
A ski racer from age 11, Wall hails from East Jindabyne, a rural, mountainous town about five hours from Sydney where the population doubles in the winter. There, "skiing is not as big a sport," he says. "There's not the funding to support it."
As a consequence Wall has for the last 10 or so years of his life missed out on the changing of the seasons and lived purely in winter; training in Australia during their short ski season " approximately June to August " and spending the rest of the year in Europe, or at the Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont, where he attended high school, or in Hanover. Two exceptions were his sophomore summer, which he managed to spend here at school, and a few months last winter when an injury sent him home to Australia (which was luckily in the midst of their summer).
The injury happened during a GS race in Austria last January. Wall had taken an off-term to travel with the Australian National team, but a broken tibia, a rod, and a few screws later, he was back in Australia, unable to walk for 10 weeks. By the end of the ordeal Wall was almost unrecognizable, having lost most of his bulk and walking slowly and with a limp. Luckily he has since sprung back to his former level of conditioning, taking the injury in stride with the dry, unaffected humor that is his trademark.
"He is a 'low maintenance' athlete," says Men's Alpine Coach Peter Dodge. "He is very quiet and unassuming he quietly gets the job done every day. He also has a great, sarcastic sense of humor that keeps the team on even keel."
Back in action for the Dartmouth team this year, Wall has helped lead the skiers to three first place carnival finishes and the top position in the east, narrowly edging out rival UVM (with only 2 carnival wins to date).
"We have exceeded all expectations up to this point," says Wall. "And surprised some of the other teams, especially UVM, who has dominated the circuit for a long time now."
Still to come this year are NCAA Championships, which will be held from March 7-10 at Middlebury. Unable to compete at NCAA's freshman year because they conflicted with World Juniors, Wall is looking forward to his first appearance and hoping to finish in the top 3 in both the Slalom and the GS (which are the only two NCAA races).
"If I ski well its certainly achievable," he said.
Noticing that the NCAA's conflict with, let's see, final exams, I inquire about the burdens of balancing such a time-consuming sport with an Ivy League education.
"Competing at the college level is difficult," Wall admits. "We miss almost every Friday due to carnivals, but you just have to be efficient and manage your time well."
An added problem is the Australian National team, which he says "doesn't agree with me going to school now. It should be something you do after you are done skiing."
"The Australian Ski Federation has not provided very consistent support over the years," echoes Dodge. "What [Wall] has accomplished has required a great deal of initiative. He was able to completely organize his recent trip to World Championships organizing his academic work and schedule, plane and travel reservations, planning with the Australian Ski Federation, communicating with the Australian Ski Team coaches who are traveling all over Europe. He has had to do this type of thing for his whole career."
Now that Wall has the Olympics on his plate, his Dartmouth graduation will in all likelihood be pushed back a few terms so that he can join the Australian team in Europe next fall to train.
"It will be an entirely different atmosphere," he says of Salt Lake. "It will be hard to stay focused, but hopefully it will not be my last Olympics."
And after Dartmouth?
"I have been skiing my entire life," he says. "After graduation, whenever that might be, I hope to continue skiing with the Australian National Team and ski-race full time on the World Cup Circuit [the highest level of competition]. I have invested too much time and money. I owe it to myself to see how far I can go with it."
Though Salt Lake is perhaps only the first step in what may be a long and illustrious Olympic career, Wall has plans beyond skiing, perhaps including "something in the area of sports psychology." And he is relieved that after his years of skiing full-time he will have something most athletes at his level will not -- "a Dartmouth education to fall back on."
Balancing academics, his responsibilities to the Dartmouth team, races all over the world, and a year-round training schedule that these days takes him back to his homeland down under very infrequently, Wall is nonetheless matter-of-fact about why he loves his sport: "Traveling all over the world, being associated with, and meeting, so many goal driven people. Seeing personal improvements and competing against some of the greatest athletes in the world."
