Torah's hard road to the top

By Matthew Price

TWO CONCUSSIONS in three days isn't ideal preparation for the biggest competition of your life, but for Torah Bright they were no obstacle to Olympic gold.

Bright, 23, was presented with Australia's fourth ever Winter Olympic gold medal on Saturday, after taking out the women's snowboard halfpipe.

"It's been amazing. Being out there with that gold medal tonight felt pretty good," she said in an interview with BigPond Sports Weekend.

Her triumph over American pair Hannah Teter and Kelly Clark came just weeks after crashes forced her out of January's Winter X Games and prompted her to undertake radical treatment.

"The last six weeks have been hard with all sorts of things," she said.

"[My doctor] does this muscle integration technique that ... balances the body. Part of what he was doing on me [after the X Games] was he was adjusting all the cranial bones. To do that he had to put a balloon up my nose and blow it up, so all those bones would crack back into place. And I felt a crack."

Bright underwent a shoulder reconstruction in 2009, and competed only when necessary in the past year. She qualified for the Vancouver Games by winning a World Cup event in November.

A practicing Mormon, Bright is something of a rarity on the snowboarding circuit. She does not drink or smoke, does not believe in premarital sex. Despite being rated highly enough to carry the Australian flag in last week's opening ceremony she has no major endorsements away from snowboarding.

Bright's older sister Rowena competed in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, and she is coached by her brother Ben.

"Some people don't know how I do it, having my brother and being with him all the time," she said.

"But you know what, he knows what he's talking about when it comes to snowboarding and he's my brother. Having someone so close to you in a moment like this that you can share together is amazing."