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Livigno: Jarryd Hughes is hobbling around in the snow between his training runs as best he can. Walking is a struggle, but at least he can do it; he has been told he will never run again. Ever.
Nor can he cycle, since riding a bike puts too much pressure on the foot he shattered last year, which will severely limit his options in keeping fit when he retires.
Jarryd Hughes trains at the Livigno Snow Park last week.Credit: Getty Images
“Maybe I’ll have to take up swimming,” Hughes said. “I’ll have to ring up some friends who used to swim professionally and see if they’ll teach me a thing or two.”
But he can ride a snowboard. And right now, that’s all that matters.
Hughes is at Milano Cortina 2026 for his fourth Olympic Games and another crack at the men’s snowboard cross – a speedy, demolition derby-style race down a course filled with obstacles – and that alone is a staggering achievement considering where he’s come from. Participation, though, won’t satisfy him, which speaks to the rugged mindset that got him through the past 10 months.
In March, the 30-year-old had reached the quarter-finals of the last World Cup stop at Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada, when he crashed out. And the term “crash” is most appropriate because the damage he suffered was the sort that surgeons only see from serious road incidents.
Jarryd Hughes at Beijing 2022.Credit: Getty Images
“Pretty innocuous fall, didn’t look bad at all,” Hughes said.
“And it just spiralled out of control. Couldn’t walk for three months, so I was non-weight-bearing … then just like, the rehab process of learning how to walk again.
“This bone that I broke is called the navicular, and I shattered the bottom of it and popped it out. That bone only really ever breaks when you were in a car accident. You shatter your whole foot, like every bone, so it’s like this really rare injury that not many people thought it was even going to be possible to be back snowboarding – let alone being at the Olympics.”
Like most Winter Olympians, Hughes is no stranger to injuries. He’s had surgery nine times on his knees (he did his ACL just before his Olympic debut in 2014, and didn’t tell anyone) to go with a bit of work on his ankle. But this injury was different, and debilitating.
Few believed he could get back to where he is, but he refused to accept the fate others tried to assign him. “It’s been interesting,” he said.
“It’s been tough having to adjust to some things. I limp everywhere. I can’t really walk. I just need constant help. And I’ve just been really lucky that I have a great support network behind me that has been great – everyone at home has been awesome.
“Footy players, they’ll do a stress fracture on it and they’re out for eight months. Ten months later, I’ve shattered it and I’m back here. I’m very happy to be back at the Games – but that’s half the job.”
Jarryd Hughes won silver in the men’s snowboard cross in 2018.Credit: Getty Images
A silver medallist at Pyeongchang 2018 who flamed out at the last Games in Beijing, Hughes is chasing gold, despite everything. He returned to competing a few weeks ago for back-to-back World Cups – the first after just four days of preparation – and did enough to earn automatic Olympic selection. He has not finished on the podium in almost two years, but he knows he’s still got excellence within him.
“I’m going to need a Panadol sponsorship after this, that’s for sure,” he laughed.
The lead-up to the snowboard cross events has not been without controversy. Before the Games, a video was circulated – which this masthead has seen – of the Italian snowboarders purportedly being granted early access to the remodelled Livigno track on January 23.
The vision put a few noses out of joint within the snowboarding community, including in the Australian team, but Olympic organisers said no favours were being granted to the hosts, saying they were only there for the purposes of “technical verification” of the start.
“No training activities on the courses have been authorised for any team, including the Italian Team, outside the official training program or activities formally communicated to and approved by FIS [the international body for skiing and snowboarding] and the IOC,” a statement from the Milano Cortina 2026 organising committee said.
That’s good enough for Hughes, who played a straight bat to questions about whether the Italians were given a leg-up.
“It’s not my job to manage everybody else,” he said. “I mean, if the FIS have approved it and everything’s all good, all good. But we’re all professionals. My job is to turn up and race, not worry about what happened before.”
The Winter Olympic Games will be broadcast on the 9Network, 9Now and Stan Sport.
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