One country's mud is another country's field of dreams

A truck carrying snow drives up Cypress Bowl to the Olympic snowboarding and freestyle venue in West Vancouver, British Columbia February 3, 2010.

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - For Vancouver Winter Olympics organizers Cypress Bowl has been a muddy nightmare but for Australians the melting mountain that will stage the snowboard and freestyle events represents a field of dreams.

"Cypress Mountain... we call it our field of dreams, it's where our major medal hopes come from," Australian team chef de mission Ian Chesterman told reporters Saturday. "We have some very strong hopes for up there in terms of our snowboard and freestyle athletes.

"We have the number one men's moguls skier in the world and the number one women's aerials skier in the world and some highly ranked snowboarders.

"We've won two medals the last two Olympics and I think two is a reasonable target for us to aim toward here."

Australia has steadily built its Winter Olympic credentials, winning medals at the last four Winter Games including a gold and bronze at the 2006 Turin Olympics.

At the same time Chesterman was detailing Australian medal hopes, across the hall Vancouver organizers were outlining an increasingly desperate situation on Cypress Mountain as unseasonably high temperatures continued to cause havoc with preparation of the freestyle and snowboard courses.

But for Australians, who grew up learning to ski and snowboard in such challenging conditions, the warm weather is providing them with an advantage.

FLYING TOMATO

"It's a very good situation the same as we have in Australia so I'm sure anything they throw at us here we can adapt to it quickly," said Chesterman. "We've been skiing here a long time and know how variable conditions can be.

"We're very good skiing across many conditions because we started in skiing in Australia where we do get a lot of variations in snow conditions."

Australia has brought 37 athletes to Vancouver and 18 of them will be competing at Cypress Mountain.

Dale Begg-Smith, who was born and learned to ski in Vancouver before taking Australian citizenship, returns home to defend the moguls gold medal he won at the 2006 Turin Winter Games while Lydia Lassila finished last season ranked number one in the world in women's aerials.

The team also includes five-times Olympian 37-year-old former-world aerials champion Jacqui Cooper and 15-year-old Britteny Cox, a promising moguls skier who will be making her Olympic debut.

Snowboard pinup Torah Bright, the 2009 X Games champion, will carry Australian medal hopes in the half pipe while 15-year-old Scott James will go up against American snowboarding icon Shaun "the Flying Tomato" White.

Australians have also found success on the speed skating oval where Sophie Muir will continue her unlikely Olympic journey.

An inline skating world champion, Muir decided to give the blades a try over a few beers at the Munich Oktoberfest while backpacking across Europe in 2008.

Just 15 months after stepping onto the ice for the first time Muir is in Vancouver and will compete in both the 500 and 1,000 meter events.

(Editing by Ossian Shine)