Injured moguls ace Jakara Anthony says while her preparation for the Milan-Cortina Olympics hasn't been ideal she will be primed to defend her title in a year's time.
Dual Olympian Anthony will spearhead the Australian team in Italy next February, when they will look to top a record haul of four medals won in Beijing in 2022.
The 25-year-old Victorian had surgery on a broken collarbone after a training fall in Sweden in December, ruling her out of World Cup competition which she dominated in 2023-24.
While there is no firm timeline in place for her return to competition, Anthony says she will be back to her best as she looks to win a second Olympic crown.
Her Beijing triumph was the first Australian gold medal since 2010 and the first medal won by a female moguls skier.
"It's not the ideal prep that I was hoping for ... I've been spending a lot of time in the gym rehabbing and it's all tracking really well at the moment," Anthony said at an Olympic function in Melbourne.
"I will hopefully get on snow pretty soon but with these rehab things it's all a bit up in the air but I'm pretty happy with how my progress is going.
"Going to these Olympics as reigning champion in a country where winter sports is such a big part of their culture is pretty wild, but I'm looking forward to the challenge of it.
"It's a pretty privileged position to be going to them in."
Anthony will fly to Italy as a spectator at next month's World Cup in Livigno, which will host the freestyle events at the Olympics.
"I've never been there before so I will get over and check it out and work out what the lay of the land is over there," she said.
She hasn't ruled out lining up in the freestyle world championships in St Moritz in Switzerland later in March.
Teenage snowboard star Valentino Guseli was also at the 'one year to go' celebration as he continues his own recovery from ACL surgery.
He is targeting a mammoth three events in Italy, which no male snowboarder has ever achieved at the Olympics.
"The ACL surgery was 10 weeks ago and it's healing super quickly so it's looking like I will be back on snow earlier than expected," said Guseli, who finished sixth in Beijing as a 16-year-old and won multiple World Cup medals since.
Team chef de mission Alisa Camplin said results from Australian winter athletes competing across the globe bode well for a big medal haul in Italy.
Scotty James (snowboard), Laura Peel (aerials), Matt Graham (moguls), Bree Walker (bobsled), Danielle Scott (aerials) and Josie Baff (snowboard cross) are some of the athletes who have recently been on the World Cup podium.
With some younger athletes emerging with some promising results, Camplin said they could end up with a larger team than the 43 that competed in Beijing.
"We learn year on year what it takes to succeed and to help more athletes succeed in more sports," Camplin told AAP.
"That consistency is something that we're all really proud of - the athletes are out there setting their expectations and knocking them off.
"We're seeing some of the younger athletes getting hungry at the possibility of maybe qualifying for a Games earlier than they might of thought.
"We might end up with a bigger team than we were expecting and nothing would make me more joyous than to see the next gen packing out the room."
