NSWIS Experts Behind World Championship Medals

In less than two years, mogul skier and NSW Institute of Sport (NSWIS), scholarship holder Matt Graham has overcome two broken collar bone surgeries and rehabilitations to win a silver medal in the moguls and a bronze in the dual moguls at the 2023 FIS World Championships, in Bakuriani, Georgia.

“Matt is an incredibly hard worker,” strength and conditioning coach Janina Strauts said about the triple Olympian.

“He is mentally resilient and tough. That is what makes him a great competitor.”

Seven weeks out from the Beijing Winter Olympics, Matt broke his collar bone. Supporting the Central Coast local on his recovery was Strauts and a team of performance health experts from NSWIS and the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia (OWIA), where Matt has been on scholarship since he was 12.

“It was very challenging to prepare Matt for the Olympic Games in such a short time frame. We had a medical team to understand the timing and the healing was appropriate. We needed to make sure the loading was at the right time and that he was able to maintain fitness,” Janina said.

“My part was supporting him in becoming the best he can be physically, to allow him to be the best he can on the moguls course.

“That was in conjunction with the coaches, the support staff, the physio, the nutritionist and the whole performance team.”

Matt was not able to put down a run and finished 29^th at his third Olympic Games, having won a silver medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics. He returned to Australia and underwent a second surgery for his collar bone.

“After Beijing he had another operation on his collar bone and had to start the rehab process again,” said Janina. “But as he does, he came back firing for the world championships, more motivated than ever.”

The Olympic silver medallist made changes to his coaching staff and physical program.

“Matt began working with coaches Pete McNiel and Kate Blamey on some technical aspects and from a physical perspective, we changed our approaches to core strength, which seems to be paying off for him.”

On winning the two world championships in March 2023, Matt became just the second Australian to ever win two medals at a FIS World Championships after Dale Begg-Smith’s gold and silver in Madonna di Campiglio, Italy, back in 2007.

“It is incredible to see him perform so well after some challenging rehabs. He is incredibly motivated, a veteran athlete, so focused and committed. And his coaches are so hard working – Pete, Kate and Des in the past,” Janina said.

Rewind to 2012 Janina took up an internship at NSWIS while studying sports science at Sydney University.

“The opportunity to be an intern was amazing. I remember getting the NSWIS gear and trying it on at home and being really excited,” she said.

“I didn’t know much about strength and conditioning, nor that it was a career. I was wanting to be a biomechanist. I helped with performance analysis and physiology testing and did some hours in strength and conditioning (S&C).”

Having trained and competed in many sports including gymnastics, high jump, pole vault, bobsleigh and rugby, the national pole vaulter not only acquired a strong foundation of knowledge through the internship, but she also loved the coaching aspect.

“S&C is very similar to coaching, instead of coaching gymnastics I was coaching squats and clean and jerks,” she said.

Janina finished her internship and asked to stay on while she completed her honours.

“Eventually I got some part-time gym floor supervision hours, which turned into part-time position with swimming. And then I got full time position with AIS which was my first full time paid position.”

She has learnt a lot in her time at NSWIS, adding to the wealth of knowledge she accumulated from the coaches of the different sports in which she has competed. As she put Matt through his paces at the NSWIS gym last week, Janina acknowledged her vocation is an ongoing juggle of complex demands.

“In this job, we work so closely with athletes who sometimes only have one shot,” said Janina. “Our job is to ensure they are doing enough training to be physically capable but also fresh enough to be able to perform when they need to.”

The NSWIS internship provided Janina with the opportunity to do what she loves in high performance sport.

“I am so grateful because without that I would not have known about S&C and it has been the gateway to high performance sport and everything I am doing at the moment.”

She has come across many motivational quotes but Janina’s personal one encourages her to embrace difficulties:

“Being scared is part of being alive. Accept it. Walk through it.”

NSWIS