Torah Bright, a 2010 Olympic halfpipe champion and a force in snowboarding for a decade, will no longer compete in halfpipe or the Olympics.
Bright, a 33-year-old expecting her first child in July, is “happy having left the competitions behind,” according to the Aspen (Colo.) Times. Bright’s longtime agent confirmed the report.
“I much prefer to cheer people on than to compete myself,” Bright said, according to the report. “It’s way less stressful. So it’s been fun to know the people who are still competing and love them and cheer them on and watch them do their best.”
Bright is arguably Australia’s greatest Winter Olympian. She toppled Americans Kelly Clark, Hannah Teter and Gretchen Bleiler for gold at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, winning from last place after the first of two runs. Bright landed a switch backside 720, coming back after she sustained three concussions in the five weeks before the Games.
In 2014, she took silver behind another American, Kaitlyn Farrington, in Sochi while becoming the first snowboarder to compete in three disciplines (halfpipe, slopestyle, snowboard cross).
Bright scantly competed after Sochi and was left off Australia’s team for PyeongChang. She returned to competition two months before the Olympics for the first time in nearly two years and saw her hopes dashed when she picked up a reported wrist injury.
Bright’s last halfpipe competition was an eighth-place finish at the January 2018 Laax Open in Switzerland.
Correction: An earlier version of this post reported that Bright retired. Bright is no longer competing in halfpipe or the Olympics but does plan to compete in other events.
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