An 11 year old from Tarras is swapping a Central Otago summer for back-to-back winters, chasing her dream of competing on the skiing world stage. 

Lottie Faulkner left for Europe on Saturday (October 11) on one very long school commute. 

She’ll be spending six months studying and skiing in Austria, switching up classroom time for the slopes as the Northern Hemisphere winter ramps up. 

Lottie will be looked after by staff at the boarding school she’ll attend as well as by a local skiing family she has connected with on a previous European ski trip. 

Plus her paternal grandparents live driving distance from where she’ll be based. 

Lottie told The Central App she was looking forward to staying “on the mountain”, with chairlifts to take her further up the slopes not far from her front door, after a New Zealand winter of very early morning starts to a day’s skiing. 

Mum Jenna remembers Lottie skiing almost as soon as she was walking. 

“She was on a pair of those penguin skis from when she was one,” she said. 

“But it was five, when we put her in the programme on Sundays at Cardrona, that her teacher said, ‘You need to get her into racing’. So, we did.” 

Not long after, Lottie made QAST – a Queenstown-based training squad looking to develop New Zealand’s next wave of competitors good enough to have a go at winning world titles. 

Lottie Faulkner is in Austria, chasing back-to-back winters to improve her skiing. Image: Supplied

“She’s competitive, in every aspect of her life,” Jenna said of her daughter. 

“But she’s also humble...she has her goal of what she wants to achieve, and she’s really driven. 

“At 11, I just think it’s incredible.” 

For Lottie, it’s the thrill of taking a slope at speed that she enjoys most. 

"I love when I'm, like, on a fast course and just going fast,” she said. 

“It scares me, sometimes, when it’s quite icy or a hard course, like slalom, but I love just fast courses.” 

This Kiwi winter has been a step up for Lottie, a year seven pupil at Cromwell College; used to taking the top spot on most post-race podiums, she has been competing in a new age group, against racers potentially two years older than her. 

There is a maturity as she reflects on her season, where, for a change, she didn’t “always win”, meaning she built resilience and learned more about dealing with setbacks. 

“I’m proud because last year...it didn't really matter if I was annoyed because I was still winning, but this year, I think I've had to be more, like, ‘If I do a bad run, I'll be fine - I just have to work on it’, and I don't get mad and stuff.” 

Her favourite run in this neck of the woods: “I like Alta at Remarkables. It's really fun - it’s fast and it’s steep”.

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