11 Feb 2010

Alisa Camplin is of one Australia’s greatest aerial skiers but, remarkably, she only took up the sport at age 19, after competing for several years in gymnastics and sailing.

Alisa was first identified as a potential aerial skier in 1994 by coaches from the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia. She went on to train in the Australian Institute of Sport/Olympic Winter Institute of Australia winter sport program from 1998 to 2002.

At her first Olympic Winter Games — Salt Lake City in 2002 — Alisa won Australia’s first gold medal in aerial skiing, for which she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2007.

Alisa’s other wins in 2002 and 2003 (the 2003 world championships and the 2002–03 World Cup) made her only the second person ever to hold the aerial skiing Triple Crown. She also won the 2003–04 World Cup title.

In the lead up to the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games Alisa snapped the anterior cruciate in her right knee for a second time but made an impressive recovery to win bronze at the Games. Alisa retired from competition shortly afterwards with 19 World Cup podium medals and the Sport Australia Hall of Fame’s ‘The Don’ Award to her name.

While training to become an aerial skier, Alisa completed a Bachelor of Information Technology at Swinburne University of Technology, and started working for IBM. She continues to work for IBM and is now in her thirteenth year with the company, managing multi-vendor maintenance and technical services delivery.

In 2006, Alisa was invited to become a board member of the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia. The following year she was appointed to the Australian Sports Commission Board, of which she is currently the Deputy Chair. She is the Chef de Mission of the Australian team for the Innsbruck 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games and, in 2009, became a board member of the Collingwood Football Club.