Winter sports in Australia encompasses a great variety of activities across the continent of Australia, including winter sports played in snow and ice such as ice hockey. Climate varies considerably from the tropical North to temperate South in Australia, and sporting practices vary accordingly. Ice and snow sports like Skiing in Australia are conducted in the high country of the Australian Alps and Tasmanian Wilderness. Australia has relatively low mountain ranges, but a long history of participation in recreational skiing (since the 1860s) and the Winter Olympic Games (since 1936). Australians have won olympic gold in ice skating, skiing and snow-boarding events. Australia's generally flat geography and usually mild winter climate otherwise provide ideal conditions for international non-snow/ice winter sports and team games like rugby union football, rugby league football, and association football (soccer), which are all popular sports during the Australian winter and in which Australia has enjoyed considerable international success. Australian rules football is a home-grown winter football code with a wide following throughout Australia. Many other sports are also played or watched in Australia through the winter season.
Sports played in winter
Australia's mild winters mean that in most parts of Australia, regular outdoor sports can be played all year, and indeed more vigorous sports are more comfortably played in winter. Australian rules football, rugby union, and rugby league, the three most popular spectator sports in Australia, are played primarily in winter. See Sport in Australia
Ice sports in Australia began with the opening of the first ice skating rink in Australia, the Adelaide Glaciarium, designed by a refrigeration technician by the name of Henry Newman Reid. On Wednesday 1 June 1904, the prospectus for the acquisition of the Cyclorama building on 89 Hindley Street, Adelaide was issued. The remodeled Cyclorama building opened as the Glaciarium on the evening of Tuesday 6 September 1904. Skating and ice sports were played in the venue. An ice polo league called the Warehouseman's League was formed, a sport in which was often refererred to as 'hockey on the ice' but was not actually ice hockey.
It wasn't until Reid built his second rink in Melbourne, Victoria named the Melbourne Glaciarium, that ice hockey began. The Melbourne Glaciarium opened on the afternoon of 9 June 1906, at 16 City Road, South Melbourne Victoria.
Turf sports
Rugby Union Reports of rugby union being played in Australia date back to the 1820s, with local clubs established by the 1860s. The game has been especially popular as a winter sport in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. The Australian national rugby union team is called the Wallabies. Since the 1920s the Wallabies have worn green and gold jerseys. Despite having a relatively small player base, mainly in NSW and Queensland, the national side has twice won the Rugby World Cup – in 1991 and 1999. Australia hosted the 2003 Rugby World Cup, which saw the Wallabies defeated by England in the final at Telstra Stadium. Other notable competitions include the annual Bledisloe Cup played against Australia's traditional rivals, the New Zealand All Blacks since 1931, and the Rugby Championship, against Argentina and South Africa. Australia has produced a number of notable rugby players of national stature, including Sir Edward Dunlop, Mark Ella (one of the first indigenous Australians to captain a national side) the prolific try scorer David Campese, and current players Michael Hooper and Samu Kerevi.
Rugby League In 1908, rugby league was established in Australia by former rugby union players and supporters as a breakaway professional code. The new code gained and has maintained a wider following in Australia than rugby union, which remained amateur until the 1990s. It has traditionally been seen as a "working man's sport" with its roots in the working class communities of the northern English counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire translating to similar areas of Western Sydney and Brisbane. Rugby league is the most popular winter sport in New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory. The elite club competition is the National Rugby League (NRL), which features ten teams from New South Wales, three teams from Queensland, and one team each from Victoria, Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The season culminates in the premiership deciding game, the NRL Grand Final, traditionally one of Australia's most popular sporting events and one of the largest club championship matches in the world. Rugby League is played in all Australian states and territories, but has a much reduced participation in the southern and western states. The New South Wales Blues and Queensland Maroons play a representative series against each other every year, called the State of Origin series, which is one of Australia's major sporting events. In addition, the Australian Kangaroos represent the country in international matches. Since its inception in 1954, the Australian team has dominated the Rugby League World Cup, having won the competition nine times.
Australian Rules Football Australian rules football (usually called " Football, Aussie rules" or "AFL") is a popular spectator sport and a participation sport in all Australian states and territories, though its core support lies in four of the six states; Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. The national competition, the Australian Football League, evolved from a Victorian state competition. The AFL Grand Final is traditionally played each year at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Australian rules football culture has a strong set of rituals and traditions, many of which have crossed sporting boundaries in Australia.
Soccer Soccer is a high participation football code, with both boys and girls at junior level as well with men and women at senior level. A number of major international stars have played for the national team in recent years including Tim Cahill, Mark Viduka, Mark Schwarzer and Harry Kewell. Australia's national team, the Socceroos, as of 2016 has competed at four FIFA World Cups. The Australian Government sought to host the event, the world's most watched sporting event, in either 2018 or 2022 but the bid failed.
Polocrosse Polocrosse is an equine team sport that was developed in New South Wales before the Second World War. This sport is now played by men, women and juniors in many parts of the world.
Snow sports
Alpine Skiing
During the Southern Hemisphere winter, snow skiing and snow boarding takes place in the high country of the states of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, and cross-country skiing is also possible in the Australian Capital Territory.
New South Wales is home to Australia's highest snow country, oldest skifields and largest resorts. The highest peak in New South Wales is Mount Kosciuszko, at 2200m. Victoria is the State with the greatest number of ski resorts in Australia. The highest peak in Victoria is Mount Bogong at 1986m. The most northerly ski fields in Australia are located in the A.C.T. - in the Brindabella Ranges which rise to the west of Canberra, the capital city of Australia, and include the Namadgi National Park in the A.C.T. and Bimberi Nature Reserve and Brindabella National Park in New South Wales. The highest mountain in the ACT is Bimberi Peak, which lies above the treeline at 1912 metres, at the northern edge of the Snowy Mountains. The most southerly ski fields in Australia are located in Tasmania, a mountainous island off the southern coast of Eastern Australia. Much of the State is subject to at least occasional winter snows. Mount Ossa is the highest point on the island at 1614m but Tasmania has eight mountains exceeding 1500m and 28 above 1,220m. Also notable is the Central Plateau, at an elevation of around 900m. The capital city of Hobart is built at the base of Mount Wellington, which at 1270m is snow-capped in winter.
Skiing began in Australia at the goldrush town of Kiandra, New South Wales around 1861. The Kiandra snow shoe club founded around that time (now called the Kiandra Pioneer Ski Club (1861)) remains the world's first identifiable and ceaseless Ski Club. The Club held separate ski races for both ladies and children as early as 1885. In 1908, the club held the first ever documented International and Intercontinental Downhill Skiing Carnival. Results- America first, Australia second, England third.The Melbourne Argus, 6 July 1908. The first Kosciuszko Chalet was built at Charlotte Pass in 1930, giving relatively comfortable access to Australia's highest terrain. The first Australian ski tow was constructed near Mount Buffalo, Victoria in 1936. It was the construction of the vast Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme from 1949 that really opened up the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales for large scale development of a ski industry and led to the establishment of Thredbo, Perisher and Guthega as leading Australian resorts.
Australian skiers competed in the Winter Olympics for the first time in Oslo 1952 and have competed in all subsequent Games, winning medals at every Games since 1998. Malcolm Milne became the first non-European to win a ski race world cup in 1969 and Olympic medalists include Zali Steggall, Alisa Camplin and Dale Begg-Smith.
Australia has extensive skiable terrain during the southern hemisphere winter in the south eastern states and Australian Capital Territory, between elevations of around 1250m to 2200m. Elevation of the snowfields in Australia varies with latitude, however viable winter snows are generally found above 1500m: Thredbo, near mount Kosciuszko, has Australia's highest lifted point at 2037m and its base elevation is 1365m. Kiandra, in the Northern Skifields, has an elevation of 1400m, while Mount Mawson near Hobart, Tasmania is at 1250m.
A number of well serviced resorts have been developed, including: Thredbo, Perisher, Charlotte Pass and Selwyn Snowfields in New South Wales; Mount Buller, Falls Creek, Mount Hotham, Mount Baw Baw and Mount Buffalo in Victoria; as well as the small resorts of Ben Lomond and Mount Mawson in Tasmania. Cross country skiing is popular in such national parks as Kosciuszko National Park and Alpine National Park and is also possible within Namadgi National Park and in the Tasmanian Wilderness.
The Australian Alps are within driving range for weekend trips for residents of Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, while Tasmanian ski slopes are within day trip range for residents of the state.
In 2004, a mogul course called "Toppa's Dream" was constructed on Blue Cow Mountain.Alpha Magazine: "The Short and Bumpy Road" February 2006. The Mount Buller World Aerials is an annual event, the first on the World Cup calendar. Aerial skiers practice extensively on water before trying jumps on snow, and Camplin practised jumps in a pond in Wandin (one hour's drive from Melbourne).Sports Illustrated: 18 February 2002. The Kangaroo Hoppet, a member of the Worldloppet Ski Federation series of cross-country skiing races, is an annual citizen race that attracts competitors from several countries. Ski jumping is currently non-existent in Australia.2005 International Masters Ski Jumping Championships report. Retrieved 2 February 2006.
The only Australian Biathlon training course is located at Dinner Plain, Victoria near Mount Hotham.
Cross country and back country skiing