ALTERNATE was not the label Sarah Blizzard wanted next to her name.
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Blizzard says she knows she is ready and capable to hit the ice with the Australian Olympic women's bobsleigh team and, while disappointed, knows "everything happens for a reason".
Her wild ride is far from over.
Blizzard will wear the green-and-gold as a member of the Australian Olympic Team, which starts its Winter Games campaign on Saturday in Beijing.
That in itself is an incredible achievement for the 25-year-old and while it might seem a little bittersweet, this is an athlete with a proven record in resilience and pure persistence.
The Ararat export is a four-time Stawell Women's Gift 120-metre finalist.
Blizzard was a key, young driver in pushing for prizemoney parity to make her almost-hometown Gift the nation's richest female footrace. Her Canberra stablemate Mel Breen, Australia's fastest female, was also a leading voice in the revolution.
With more money, comes more high-quality contenders and Blizzard made the final four consecutive years - 2014 to 2017 - each final narrowing her mark by the next Easter.
Blizzard was runner-up to Ballarat's Grace O'Dwyer in 2015, the Easter a $40,000 purse was introduced - so close to having her name etched in Stawell walk of fame history.
It was her performances in Stawell that sparked an invitation for Blizzard to take her game to the ice.
Australia subbed a self-funded women's bobsleigh team for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Former Australian 400m champion Jana Pittman, the first Australian woman to compete in Summer and Winter Olympics, voiced her outrage at the time for a sport that needs coverage to survive.
"We need track-and field athletes on the brink of Olympic level but don't quite make it to transfer sports," Pittman said. "They do that when they see the Australian bobsled team competing at the Olympics."
Blizzard's tale so far shows how athletes can reinvent themselves and keep taking their games to the next level - even when the dream does not pan out how they pictured.
This goes for all sports, not just sprinters seeking to sled like Blizzard and Pittman.
There have been Cool Runnings type moments for Blizzard whose Australian-based power training has included her pushing a car with her dad inside at the wheel during the pandemic.
Amusing as this might seem, anyone who has stood at the top of the run in Calgary where Cool Running's Jamaican bobsled team slid in 1988 can start to truly sense why this is not a sport for the feint-hearted.
Blizzard was sidelined with concussion at the start of this season and can back to push a personal best in her second race. In the end it was contracting COVID-19 just before New Year's that cost Blizzard a spot in the two-women sled as main brake person. She managed to get a negative test in time to compete in the final race of the European season and final major hit-out before Beijing.
Blizzard's improvement in power and speed from her Gift days is impressive. She is ready for anything and anything could happen in Beijing.
As Sanka says in Cool Runnings, "I'm feeling very Olympic today, how 'bout you?" Hopefully we get a Blizzard.
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