With fifteen years of an aerial skiing career, Davis Morris has had his fair share of doubts and hardships. But coming from a country where winter sports are often looked upon, the Olympian medallist gave it all to go forward. And his professional sportive career is not exactly finished. After all, he started freestyle skiing relatively old, and has a lot of reasons to find new challenges.
Starting a sport while being “old” (19 years old) is definitely a challenge, if one wants to reach an Olympic level. A challenge that Davis Morris embraced 18 years ago when at a Gymnastics event, a sport he started aged three. That day, Morris was scouted by Kirstie Marshall, herself a former aerial skier and Olympian.
Reflecting on this event, he considers that he was lucky to be at the right place at the right time. David Morris had skied over some weekends around Mount Orford or Mount Buller, in his home state of Victoria. But it truly is the skills he displayed that day that convinced Mrs Marshall that this old teenager had potential. She went on to offer to train him for free. Therefore, launching a new passion and a long career for David Morris.
Quickly, the future Olympian faced a first difficulty. He was the only man on the team and had to tag along with the women’s team. Indeed, in aerial skiing, male athletes are required to demonstrate harder skills. Thus, it takes around eight years to train a boy to be a professional aerial skier, as opposed to six for a girl. As a result, he had to train at an accelerated pace. In the end, he reached a professional level in just three years and went on to compete in World Cups, World Championships and three Olympics. By securing a silver medal at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics, he became the best male aerial skier in Australia’s history.
“That day I realised that I was up at the same standard as the bests in the world”
This medal was obviously one of the highlights of his career, but his first podium also holds a special place in his heart. “That day I realised that I was up at the same standard as the bests in the world”
It came to prove that a lot of doubts he had when starting this type of freestyle skiing were behind him.
One of them, and a second difficulty he faced while starting aerial skiing, was his age. Back then, he understood that his age was an issue. But he gave an insight that did not surprise me coming from an athlete. He talked about his desire to prove his worth and to persevere in his sport: “I was told I was too old and wasn’t gonna be good. That basically sparked a little fire on the inside”.
Such a level of motivation apparently led him to reach a professional level in only three years, but he also recognises that going quickly through the basics led him to an injury at some point.
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Like all athletes, and I should say sports people, David Morris was confronted with injuries, down times and failures at some point in his career. Reflecting on this with him truly was enlightening.
He states that for this type of freestyle sport, accidents and crashes are daily. If David Morris seemed quite laid-back as I talked to him, he was also very reflective on the idea of failure and hardships. It is important to talk about hardships and down times; in sport, as well as in general. For Morris, it was part of the job.
Indeed, after I had asked him about the highlights of his career, we went on to discuss the down times. He recalls that there were plenty of them. Notably a severe hip injury at his first Olympics in 2010, due to the fact that he had not practiced the basics well enough. This combined with a post-Olympics depression where he was at his lowest. “Nothing really prepares you for the after”. Interestingly enough, this idea of a depression did not come to
his mind in that moment. It’s latter, reflecting on this time, that he realised it. Following these 2010 Games, he hated training and quitted permanently. Actually, he thought about quitting every year of his career, but 2010 was especially difficult. “I never really doubted myself like during that particularly bad year.” Eight months later, he would realise that leaving makes you miss the thrill of the sport and made his return to aerial skiing.
“I never really doubted myself like during that particularly bad year.”
All of this come to show that it is actually healthy to stop. He sees it as a win-win situation. It either makes you stop doing something painful or makes you pause it until you are ready again. He believes that some people linger on and that it’s not healthy. Morris’ positive insight is that it is important to self-reflect and be honest about yourself. It is important for everyone, athlete or not, to hear that failure happens. And it’s great when athletes are open about it. All in all, failure is instructive, and quitting can be good. Moving on is also an option, as did David Morris when he became an Olympic coach.
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Starting a coaching career was the next (natural) challenge for Morris. He describes it as an easy transition and reminds us that in the background of his Olympic career, he studied to be a PE teacher. He’d also been a Gymnastic coach since 15, which helped him to make a decision about the future of his career past the 2018 Olympics in South Korea. After his third Olympics, he felt he had done enough. A younger generation was emerging, and it was time to pass on his knowledge. This later aspect actually seemed significant for him. Giving back was the way to go in order to “leave a little legacy”.
Concretely, his coaching career started through a partnership with the Swiss team. Freestyle skiing is much more developed there and it allowed for a mix of different style of leadership. The Swiss coach bringing his 25 years’ experience as a trainer and Morris his theoretical knowledge as well as his recent recollection of the experience of jumping of a ramp. Lead by David Morris, the Aussie male team travelled to Europe during their snow season and would come back home for the Southern winter.
Having to train with potential competitors was not a problem as long as the Swiss team was mostly male and the Aussie one mostly female. However, things have changed and both teams are now following each their own way. Morris states that the teams staying together isn’t relevant anymore, notably with the issue of funding. It would be difficult to justify training with an opposite team when asking for government funding. But this time with the Swiss team remains a good experience. In terms of connexions and in term of snow. As he puts is, “The worst day in Switzerland is Australia’s best day” for skiing conditions. Although today, it is not in his plan to continue on this path with any other team.
We also discussed the issue of sponsorships. And just like with recruiting talents, it brought us back to the question of Australia’s interest for winter sports. Today, his team’s sponsors are ski brands from overseas. His only local sponsor was a Melbourne shop, providing equipment bags. But this other difficulty doesn’t stop David Morris from moving forward. He remains optimistic for the future of his sport and team. New facilities are coming in Brisbane, to practice the aerial figures over water. As it will be located next to the summer facilities, he believes that it can create more visibility for the sport in a couple years’ time. In the meantime, the aerial skiing team is focusing on the next challenge: a World Cup every year, World Championships every two years and the Italian Winter Olympics in 2026. Games that he hopes to be better that the 2022 ones in China, where the male team did not qualify for the finals.
Now, David Morris is again looking forward, learning from the past and coaching the team. It is now his responsibility to scout talent and hopefully find a future Olympian. Maybe by luck, like Kirstie Marshall eighteen years ago.
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