The Beijing Winter Olympics begin this week: meet the Deakin students representing Australia!
Following the action from the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games last year, we can’t wait to see our Deakin elite-athlete students step up to represent Australia once again in the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing (4–20 February)!
Here we meet our alumni and current students who will kick off their Olympic dreams following the opening ceremony on Friday. The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics will be televised live and free exclusively in HD on Seven and 7plus, so remember to stay tuned to catch all the on-the-ground excitement as it happens.
Best of luck to all our athletes!
Belle Brockhoff – Snowboard
A seasoned Olympian, Belle has competed in the 2018 PyeongChang and 2014 Sochi Winter Games and we’re excited to see her kick off 2022 with a world-class performance in Beijing!
Belle had an outstanding year professionally in 2021, being awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award at the Snow Australia Awards in May following an amazing comeback season in which she was the 2021 Mixed Team Snowboard Cross World Champion. She was also named as a finalist for the prestigious Athlete of the Year Award, with a nomination in this category alone considered to be an exclusive industry honour.
A current Bachelor of Commerce/Bachelor of Laws student at Deakin, Belle has also shared her story to support several campaigns aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of other young people which earned her the 2020 Community Spirit Award in the 2020 Deakin Sport Awards.
Prior to this, Belle was awarded a Deakin Full Blue Award in Snowboarding in the 2019 Deakin Sport Awards. This award recognised Belle’s achievements as she overcame a serious knee injury to win Women’s Race 3 of the SBX FIS ANC event at Mt Hotham in September 2018 following her earlier national representation in PyeongChang.
Jakara Anthony – Freestyle Skiing
Currently third in the women’s World Cup rankings (and first in the overall mogul World Cup standings), we’re looking forward to seeing what Jakara can achieve in Beijing.
She has been steadily building her reputation as one of the best female mogul skiers in the world since her breakout success in the 2018–19 World Cup Tour season where she claimed six medals and No. 2 status in the sport globally, before adding a silver medal at the 2019 World Championships to her impressive tally. Proving her mettle, Jakara’s follow-up season saw her score a further four World Cup medals and the world No. 2 ranking for a second consecutive year.
Currently a Bachelor of Exercise and Sport Science student at Deakin, Jakara previously competed at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics at just 19 years of age, making the Super Final in the Freestyle Mogul Skiing event and finishing fourth overall. While narrowly missing out on a medal, this was the highest result ever for an Australian in the history of Mogul Skiing at the Winter Olympics at the time.
Despite COVID-19 disruptions to the 2020–21 World Cup season, Jakara placed fourth overall in the 2021 World Championships and cemented her Olympics qualification with a slew of medals while also being named a finalist for the Athlete of the Year Award alongside Belle Brockhoff in the 2021 Snow Australia Awards.
Bree Walker – Bobsleigh
Formerly a Bachelor of Health and Physical Education student at Deakin, we’re keeping our eye on alumna Bree Walker in her bid to bring home a medal for Australia!
Currently ranked fifth in the world in her sport, Bree will make her Olympic debut in Beijing where she’ll compete in the women’s monobob and two-woman bobsleigh events.
Starting out with Olympic dreams for athletics when she younger, Bree found state and national success in 400m hurdles before persistent injuries prompted her to turn her sights to bobsleigh. Since 2016, Bree has quickly established herself in her discipline, becoming the first Australian to win a World Cup gold medal in the sport and dominating the monobob circuit with seven gold medals to her name.
This season, Bree also managed to take out Australia’s best-ever result in the two-woman bobsleigh with brakewoman Kiara Reddingius. Good luck at your first Olympics, Bree!
Dean Hewitt – Curling
We’re also looking forward to cheering on alumnus Dean Hewitt as he competes at his first Olympic Games! Dean studied both a Bachelor of Exercise and Sport Science and Master of Clinical Exercise Physiology at Deakin.
With curling partner Tahli Gill by his side, Dean will compete in the mixed doubles event following years of hard work by the pair. The duo finished fourth in the 2019 World Mixed Teams Curling Championships in Norway, giving them their best-ever result and Australia’s first Olympic quota place in the sport, before beating Korea in the qualifying event in the Netherlands late last year to make the the Australian team for the Winter Games.
Previously, Dean (and Tahli) won silver medals at both the New Zealand Winter Games and Sutherland Mixed Doubles Curling Classic in 2019, before taking out thirteenth place at the 2021 World Championships following COVID-19 disruptions to the 2020 competitions.
While not commonly seen in Australia, the sport of curling involves teams attempting to slide rocks or stones from one end of the ice rink to the other, where they should land as close to the target as possible. The sliding process is ably assisted by the sweepers, who use brooms to help guide the stones into place. Curling has always been in the family for Dean, who started at a young age alongside his parents who have both played for Australia. Best of luck, Dean!
Help us cheer on our elite-athlete students from home!
Support your fellow Deakin students and alumni as they go for gold by catching all the action from home via Seven’s official televised coverage of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Good luck to all our athletes in Beijing!
Photographs by Getty Images.
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