NZSBU National Team Member and 2010 Olympian.

Ju Bray is is heading for her second Olympic Games.

She wore the silver fern at the Torino Winter Olympic Games in 2006 where she finished a very strong 16th in the half pipe and 22nd in boarder cross.

She has also won the Burton Half Pipe ( 2008) and came 5th in the World Cup half pipe in 2009.

At 34 her depth of experience helps her perform in variable snow and weather conditions giving her a distinct advantage over other competitors.

Ju rates her sport as "sensational and inventive" and is aiming for the half-pipe finals at Vancouver.

Vancouver will be Brown's second Olympics. Formerly of Mt Maunganui, she represented New Zealand in halfpipe at Turin at the age of 16, placing 24th.

At that time she was the youngest New Zealand Winter Olympian for 40 years.

Brown has had solid recent results, on January 10 placing 13th at the halfpipe event in the Austrian World Cup in Kreischberg.

It was the best result for New Zealand in a hotly-contested event, and she's now ranked 30th in the world.

Snowboarding is all in the family for Brown. This will be the second Winter Olympics for her and older brother Mitch, also competing in halfpipe.

NZSBU National Team Member and named to 2010 Olympic Team

Mitch Brown is a fighter and an all-round kiwi who loves hunting, fishing and surfing.

He first competed at an Olympic Games in 2006 at Torino and rates mixing up his runs in the half pipe as one of his core strengths.

He won the Burton Open in New Zealand in 2007 and since then has battled ongoing injuries that have kept him off the snow during his build-up to Vancouver 2010.

Notably, he admires anyone who has overcome a challenge to succeed.

He describes himself as a "fighter" and all-round Kiwi bloke who loves hunting, fishing and surfing. He's struggled with injuries on and off snow after a motorcycle crash in late 2007.

Mitch rates his sport as progressive, exciting and enjoyable.

A fulltime snowboarder, Hamilton is aiming to turn his passion a career. The 20 year old from Albany has spent the last four years riding some of the most incredible winter hot spots in the world: Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Switzerland, Italy, Whistler and Wanaka.

He managed a podium at World Cup finals in 2008 in Italy and was in the top 16 at the World Champs in Gangwon, Korea, in 2009. Hamilton is currently ranked 38th in the world.

Like Bray he chose to compete at the Mammoth Mountain event, having achieved a quota spot early on. He believes his strengths in snowboarding are his enthusiasm, perseverance, and a laid-back attitude that helps him to keep a cool head.

Not content to just compete in Vancouver, he's aiming well beyond this year to the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, when he'll still  be just 24. But he's confident about his chances next month. "I want to be in the top five. I definitely want to be one of the best halfpipe riders in the world."

Rebecca, or Bex, is the youngest athlete in the New Zealand Olympic Team to Vancouver.

Currently ranked 32nd in the world, Sinclair first competed for New Zealand aged 14 in 2006, when she was selected to be part of the New Zealand Youth Team at the Youth Worlds in Italy, where she came first in the Under-14 half pipe.

Back in 2008 the teenager placed seventh in the women's halfpipe on the first stop of the Winter Dew Tour in Breckenridge, Colorado.

In 2009 she nabbed an invite to the prestigious Winter X Games in Colorado although she had to turn it down to compete at the Winter Olympics qualifying event in Korea.

She says her favourite thing about riding is "the amazing stoked feeling you get when you stomp a trick you have been working on, and just going down the pipe doing big lofty straight airs - epic."

Alpine-skiing, the longest-established of the snow and ice disciplines, is the cream of Olympic sport in Europe.

It's also where New Zealand has scored its only Olympic medal, Annelise Coberger's silver at the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, southeast France.

Cafe first represented New Zealand in 2001 and was ranked the overall winner in the NZ/Australian Cup in 2008.

In 2009 he came 36th in the Super G in the World Open Championships. He recently finished 24th at the FIS Super G event at Santa Caterina Valfurva, Italy.

Cafe also has a bachelor's degree in marketing and is partway through a BA in philosophy.

Throughout this season Greig has performed consistently well, a good sign for her Olympic debut.

She's relatively new to skier cross, racing in the event for just three years, but her daredevil attitude makes her a natural and she enjoys the "hardcore" aspects of it compared to alpine.

Greig has been described as a "true daughter of Queenstown", skiing through back-to-back winters for the last six years. Last Olympics, aged 16, she narrowly missed out on selection in alpine.

Disillusionment sent her straight to the helter-skelter of ski cross, a new freestyle ski discipline at the Olympics this year. Six races in, she was ranked 18th in the world and had found her calling.

This season she's consistently been in the top 30 and believes a top 10 in Vancouver is definitely possible. "With skier cross there's a little bit of luck involved as well. If everything goes my way there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to do it."

"It’s got everything I enjoy - Its fast, has big airs & contact with 4 other people! I don't really care where I ski…as long as there are skis on my feet I'm happy."

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Katie Calder is an Australian Kiwi with a strong interest in world affairs and foreign languages. She's fluent in German and also speaks French and Italian.

Calder achieved the 'A' qualifying last year based on her standings and points earned on the International Ski Federation (FIS) World Cup circuit, which removed some of the pressure early on.

She's only the second female cross-country skier to be selected for the New Zealand Winter Olympics after Madonna Harris, a Canadian-based New Zealand cyclist, was selected to Nordic ski at the Calgary Winter Olympics in 1988.

Calder has a BCom in accounting and taxation law, gained via correspondence.

She was named cross-country skier of the year at the New Zealand Snowsports awards, held in Wanaka last July.

Calder says the thrill of pushing herself to her limits is a challenge she looks forward to every day.

"Nothing beats the feeling of skiing as fast as you can when you are in the shape of your life."

An accomplished all-rounder, Ben Koons is an elite athlete, student and world traveler. He's also an environmental engineering student and has worked in Rwanda with the United Nations developing sustainable energy sources.

Last autumn Koons and his brother spent three months cycling across western China, through Tibet, Yunnan, and Xinjiang. He believes his diverse interests are his strength in his sport.

"I do plenty of cross training and non 'conventional' workouts that I believe help to make me a more well rounded athlete. This makes it much easier to fine tune ski specific movements and strength."

Koons missed the 07-08 season due to knee surgery, and struggled the next season to recover his lost endurance base.

"In the long run it has been good through, for several years before the operation I could not do long distance running workouts, which are no problem now."

A couple of weeks ago, skiing in a 15km classic style NorAm race in Canada, Koons delivered the best-ever FIS point result by a New Zealand male cross country skier.

His 13th place in a talented field gave him a 65 FIS point result, and was only 1 minute 40 off the podium.

Koons regards his parents, siblings, Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay and Rick Masumbuko as sources of inspiration.

First racing for New Zealand in November 2008, Murphy calls herself a "Can-iwi".

With New Zealand citizenship thanks to her Wellington mum, she will be New Zealand's first Winter Olympics representative in biathlon, a demanding mix of cross-country skiing and rifle shooting.

Murphy recently finished 66th at Antholz, Italy, in the 15km Individual, her second-best result in a World Cup ever. Biathlon has been Murphy's life since she was 13.

She placed 14th in the World Junior Champs last year and in 2008 had a string of firsts in national and international championships, including winning the Slovenia Cup.

She has a difficult wait for selection, as it depends on international quotas and whether a place is available for New Zealand.

She also has her sights firmly set on Sochi in 2014, where she aims to be top 10.

Her passion is building the sport's profile in New Zealand and she's hoping to get a team together for the 2011 Youth Olympics.