This Australian skier had never raced a skiathlon event. Until the Olympics.

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TESERO, ITALY — There’s having your Olympic debut. Then there’s having your Olympic debut in an event that you’ve literally never raced in before.

That was the story Saturday for Maddie Hooker, a 21-year-old Australian for whom Saturday’s Olympic skiathlon race was the first time she’d ever competed in the event.

Hooker is not a skiing novice: She competes on the U.S. East Coast collegiate circuit for Colby College in Maine. But the skiathlon — which combines cross-country’s two techniques, with a swap of skis and poles in the middle of the race while the clock is still running — is rarely contested outside of international championships, given its logistical complexity and requirements of multiple sets of gear.

“What other sport would you actually turn up for the Olympics not actually having done the event?” Jake Hooker, Maddie’s father, said in an interview at the cross-country skiing venue just before his daughter hit the trails. But, he added: “Why not start at the Olympics?”

Maddie Hooker made it three-fourths of the way through the 20-kilometer race before she was lapped and pulled by the organizers — but she was still buoyant afterwards. 

She said the experience of being thrown into the deep end is “the beauty of being Australian” — a country that doesn’t exactly have a storied cultural tradition of cross-country skiing.

Nonetheless, the nation has periodically produced competitive athletes on skiing’s international circuit, and even some who have grown up in urban areas: Rosie Fordham, who grew up in Sydney and now attends the University of Alaska Fairbanks, placed 13th in a top-level World Cup race earlier this year.

Hooker, who’s from Melbourne, learned to ski on trips to the United States, attended a skiing-focused high school in Vermont called Stratton Mountain School, and now goes to Colby College in Maine. 

She said she was not expecting to qualify for the Olympics this year but had strong early-season results and ended up rounding out Australia’s women’s team as the fourth member.

For the skiathlon, her biggest challenge might have been procuring a pair of event-specific boots — a sort of hybrid of the more supportive boots with an ankle cuff used for cross-country’s skating technique, and the lower profile version used for classical striding. They’re scarce, and the family’s contact at Fischer Sports, Hooker’s ski company, didn’t have any, said Jake Hooker.

After “hours on the internet trying to find a pair of boots,” he said, “eventually we found a pair.”

Then, in the days before the race, Hooker spent time practicing the ski exchange — the part of the event where athletes make a pit stop as the clock runs to exchange their classic skis and classic poles for skating equipment.

“I find getting the pole straps off the hardest. But I kind of picked it up, just followed my teammates,” she said. 

The event itself, she said, was fun. While some athletes are stronger in one technique over the other, Hooker said she doesn’t have a preference.

“I think it kind of suits me quite well doing both,” she said. “And at the end of the classic I was definitely very happy to change over to skate.”

She’ll race three more events, Hooker said, before the Olympics are over.

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