Cortina: On Thursday, 16-year-old Liana France became Australia’s youngest ever female Winter Paralympian and celebrated exactly as a teenager would: blowing kisses to the camera crew and waving to her family who held a baby pink Australian flag complete with a superimposed photo of her face.
“She had strict instructions about size, about photo, colour,” France’s mum, Kylie, said from the grandstands. “It’s a little ridiculous.”
Liana France’s family with their custom flag made on strict instructions from the 16-year-old.Credit: Getty Images for IPC
France had waited all week to make her Paralympic debut in the women’s giant slalom standing event, and spent those days making daily TikToks videos of life inside the athletes village. But last night, the teen put a post on her Instagram saying it was her followers’ time to wait for more videos, as the teenager had a milestone to cross.
“Coming over that finish line makes me officially a Paralympian. That is just such a crazy experience,” she said. “Obviously, I’ve been working up to this moment for months, but in the start gate I was saying to myself ‘I’ve won the race by getting here’.”
France gave her family strict guidelines about the custom pink flag (“I made sure they had a good photo of my face”) and on what to wear in the grandstands, which included green and gold wigs – all from online budget shop Temu.
“When she finished I went ‘oh my god, she’s a Paralympian’,” Kylie said. “I can’t believe she’s here. What a beautiful run and so much joy for the whole family. It’s great.”
Although she had to wait all week for her first event on Thursday, France has been anticipating skiing at this level for much longer.
Liana France has become Australia’s youngest ever Winter Paralympian.Credit: Getty Images
As a two-year-old, France was enrolled in skiing lessons after watching an episode of Peppa Pig where the cartoon pig goes skiing. Then at nine-years-old a coach of hers added an extra box to the end of her skills checklist which said, ‘see you at the Olympics’. That small script at the bottom of the list enshrined the goal for France, changing to the Paralympics after a vehicle accident crushed her hand as a 13-year-old.
France brought that small checklist with her to the Paralympics so that this week, she could finally get an official to tick the final box.
“Who would have ever thought that the nine-year-old Liana who said ‘I want to go to the Olympics’, and changed to the Paralympics after the accident, that we’ve been able to get her and support her to get this far? She’s absolutely amazing,” her mum said.
France’s best friend, Ella, was in the crowd to watch too after making a promise as children that if either made it to this stage, the other would be there.
“She’s such an inspiration for everyone. I think, especially for women. She’s such a feminist too so she would love this,” Ella said. “She’s everything that she wants to be. I know she’s inspired me at least, and I know she’s inspired her sister, and I know she’s inspired about a billion other people. Just the fact that she’s gotten back up and gotten on the snow and gone ‘nup, won’t stop me’.”
France made her Paralympic debut alongside teammate 22-year-old Georgia Gunew and her guide Ethan Jackson, 25. One poster in the crowd wrote “yeah the girls… and Ethan”.
Georgia Gunew and her guide Ethan Jackon, compete in the women’s giant slalom.Credit: Getty Images
“Ethan is one of the girls,” Gunew said.
Like France, Gunew grew up skiing but lost her vision at 15 when diagnosed with Stargardt’s macular dystrophy. Gunew reaches speeds up to 100km/h while being legally blind and does so with the help of Jackson who wears a fluoro vest and bluetooth headset to help guide her down the mountain.
“It’s great skiing with Liana too. I’m so stoked,” Gunew said. “I’ve never had another female competitor from Australia in the same day as me in the whole time I’ve been skiing with the team. So it’s been so cool. She’s very young and energetic and always has something a bit funny to say, so I love having her on the team.”
France placed 15th of 22 and Gunew 11th of 15 in the women’s giant slalom standing and vision impaired categories respectively. Both compete again in the women’s slalom on Saturday – their preferred events.
Georgia Gunew and Ethan Jackson embrace after the finish line of the giant slalom.Credit: Getty Images
“I don’t want to jinx myself, but this is my first games at 16. So in the future, I would say that I’m definitely one to watch from Australia,” France said.
This masthead has travelled to Cortina as a guest of Paralympics Australia.
The Winter Paralympic Games is broadcast on the Nine Network, 9Now and Stan Sport.
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